Inversion
by Halfpenny
Summary: Akihiko was fairly sure he wrote the manual on how to deal with things poorly. (Trigger warnings inside; multiple ships sailing.) IN-PROGRESS
1. She Makes Things Explode With Zios

**Inversion**

* * *

Trigger warnings – rated for eventual eating disorders, strong language, and canon-typical violence. 

* * *

**Chapter 1 – She Makes Things Explode With Zios**

* * *

His ribs and shoulder had still been howling protests under the barrage of painkillers when Mitsuru had invited herself in his room, charts in hand, and told him Hamuko should be the leader. "Huh?" he said.

"I've looked over the readings." Mitsuru closed the door behind her with a nudge of her foot. Her hair was swept back into a bun, pencil lodged behind her ear. She flipped over the top sheet on the clipboard and on second thought hit his light switch – a quick, distracted gesture. "Her power levels are astronomical. I've never seen the like – neither has the chairman."

"We all had huge power leaps when our personas first awakened," Akihiko said, and also he was half-naked. He wondered if he should be making more of an attempt to cover himself. "That's no reason for her to take the reins just because of that. She's just a kid."

"Take a look at these levels and tell me if you disagree."

Her slippers whispered on the floorboards as she crossed the room. He took the clipboard from her, glancing at her briefly before turning his attention to the top sheet. "Her power level was so high it caused a momentary lapse in the grid," Mitsuru said. "The computer was essentially knocked offline. It's why we lost connection to Takeba's com in the middle of battle."

"Yeah, but…" … those numbers were really damn high. Mouth going dry, Akihiko squinted involuntarily to bring them into better focus in the low light. "You _sure_ that's…"

"We triple checked. It was all her. Her power levels are still jumping, in fact– it's causing malfunctions in the hospital equipment. So far they have attributed it to a mechanical error but can't locate the cause."

"Power doesn't mean she's ready to _lead_ ," he said, handing it back over. The action hurt his ribs. The earth's voyage around the sun hurt his ribs. "If anything, that'd make her a better second in command. That way she can focus on just hitting as hard as she can, and not be distracted by giving orders."

"Let me put it this way," Mitsuru said. "Would you rather have Takeba or Iori lead?"

… well, okay, no, but the blunt dismissal in her voice confused him. "I'll lead like I always do. I might be out of commission for now, but sooner or later I'll—"

"You and I both know it's going to take at least a month for you to heal, Akihiko. We can't afford to hold up the operations because of your carelessness."

Taken aback by the sharpness in her tone, Akihiko shut his mouth. Mitsuru sighed shortly, running her hair out of her face, and sat on the side of his bed. He studied her, taking in the subtle curve of her shoulders – weariness she'd never let the juniors see. "She's been in the hospital for three days already," she said. "None of us were out that long."

"With a power jump that high, it's no wonder she's worn out," he said, kind of wondering what was really going on here. "She'll be okay."

"If she had parents I'd contact them, but she's practically a ghost." Mitsuru eased herself back on her hands. "Penthesilea can't get a read on her. She keeps… changing. Shifting, I guess is a better word."

"Maybe it's a part of her persona's ability. Cloaking or something."

"Perhaps," Mitsuru said, and said nothing else.

Akihiko finally read into her silence. "Look, it's not you. If Penthesilea can't sense her, then it's got to be something she's doing on her own."

"Well, whatever it is, it's effective. We'll just have to wait until she's out on the field to determine the full extent of her abilities." With a sigh she pushed herself off the bed, then looked down at him. He met her disapproval with a bland look of his own. "You've erred, Akihiko," she said. "Rather egregiously."

"It sucker punched me," he said, getting a little defensive _._ "You want to tell me how I'm supposed to defend against that many appendages?"

"Summon Polydeuces instead of flailing at everything with your fists," Mitsuru said. "Not everything is a boxing match. You're fortunate we were able to adequately explain the injury at the hospital."

 _Flailing with fists._ He felt something throb in his forehead. "Listen—"

"If you want to be useful to us anytime soon, you'll keep yourself still and focus on recovering." Mitsuru paused just outside the door, hand on the frame, then said, "You were lucky this time, Akihiko. I would prefer you didn't press your luck in the future."

When she was gone, he hauled himself out of bed and slipped on his shirt, and sat down at his desk to do homework.

He tried to finish his math because he really did need to catch up. The next week faded into cosines and tangents and autumn eyes and the girl who looked like Miki lying in the hospital bed. All of it, he quickly discovered, being equally relevant. 

* * *

The way Arisato wielded her naginata in battle was… well, he was pretty sure it was wrong. But whatever. She made it work. Much more elegantly than Junpei's rookie-league swings with his spiked bat, though it made his blood-pressure skyrocket to watch how close at times the blade whizzed by her neck.

Akihiko was really bad at being injured. It wasn't that big a secret. The entire boxing team knew it, Mitsuru knew it, and now so did a bunch of juniors he barely knew. It wasn't even that he missed the fight as much as he just had too much time to think, and a lifetime spent fussing over details didn't allow for casual thought.

He couldn't sit still. He worried over nothing, endlessly paced the floors, crowded Mitsuru at her equipment until she lost patience and snapped at him to _go to bed, for goodness sake, Akihiko._ Then he'd lay on his back and listened to time pass with his whole body, counting down until morning, wiling away the time until the sun came up and made a little more sense of everything again.

Eventually Mitsuru let him come to Tartarus, provided he come after the juniors were in the tower and left before they returned. Listening in on battles over Mitsuru's com was illuminating. So far they were fighting as a unit, which was something. On the other hand Yukari had a tendency to hesitate and Junpei had a tendency to ignore orders, and more often than not someone would end up on their ass during the fight.

They'd pull it together in the end, but Akihiko spent a lot of the battles hovering somewhere between an aneurysm and an ulcer. Yukari being a little nervous… that was fine. She'd get over that. Junpei's insubordination, that was the real problem. It'd be different if Arisato was making bad calls, but for the most part, she was actually weirdly intuitive. A lot of the time she knew where to hit before Mitsuru even called out a weakness.

After a particularly rough night with a Thebel guardian, remembering how hoarse Arisato had sounded in his earpiece, Akihiko caught Junpei before he went up the stairs for the night and pushed him against the wall to have a talk. "Really, man, I _had_ it," Junpei said. "She just dove in without asking. I was all ready to go critical on that mother—"

"She did it to save your skin." His ribs hurt, manhandling Junpei like this, but he needed to make a point. "Look, enough is enough. We get it, you're tough. But the fact is, we put Arisato in charge, and you put the mission and everyone around you in danger with your showboating tonight."

Junpei's eyes flashed. He was a good kid. Akihiko had read over the report the Kirijo group had compiled on him a few days after Akihiko had brought him in. Abusive home, acting up in school, but there was potential there under all that. "Come on, back off, senpai," Junpei said tightly. "I did my job out there."

"This isn't a video game. There aren't any saves or continues. If you die, no amount of Yukari's magic is going to be able to bring you back."

"I don't care about that!"

"Then care about _her_. Care about the trust she's placed in you. Frankly," Akihiko said, "it's not me you have to worry about. If Mitsuru thinks you're endangering the group, she has the ultimate veto power. You were brought here to be an asset. If you're in any way a danger to the member of SEES, we have the right to toss you right back out."

The color dropped out of Junpei's face. Instantly Akihiko felt like a bastard. Stupid or not, Junpei had worked hard tonight. He'd stripped to the waist on the couch and Yukari had treated what she could while the Dark Hour still let her use her power, but he was bloody still, in need of a shower and a good night's sleep. It'd been harder to ignore the fading bruises on his back and shoulders, but when Mitsuru had met his eyes from across the room she'd shaken her head slightly. _Leave it alone._ "I," Junpei began, then cleared his throat and continued with a stubborn hitch in his voice. "I wouldn't do that."

"You sure?" He still felt bad, but this was important. This was about Arisato's tired eyes and bloody uniform and the half-smile she threw at him in the lobby when she caught him looking at both. "Because this is more than you or me or anyone here. We mess up, innocent people are going to suffer. Do you understand?"

"I'm not—"

"Do you understand?"

Junpei's mouth closed. Color was starting to return to his face, blazing high in his cheeks. Akihiko half-expected him to launch into another tirade, but when Junpei spoke it was low, through gritted teeth. "I understand."

"You have to follow orders. I know sometimes it's hard to swallow, but—"

"Look, I _get_ it, okay? I get it," Junpei said. "And I know… what this is. I get that. I'm not stupid. I'm not in the _way,_ senpai."

Akihiko scanned his face. Junpei was still flushed, body still tense with anger, but he was no longer trying to get away.

All of a sudden he felt crushingly tired. He clapped Junpei lightly on the shoulder and said, relenting, "I know it was tough. I'm sorry I couldn't be out there with you. It'll go better next time."

Junpei's nodded curtly, avoiding Akihiko's gaze. Akihiko let him go, and Junpei went up the stairs without another word.

 _Leave it alone._

* * *

He blew up eight shadows in his head during morning assembly and fourteen during the budget meeting after school, which was cathartic until he remembered that no, even that would be different now. An hour each night was still dedicated to full-out ball-shrinking weirdness, sure, but now there was… context. Or at least the who and why had gotten more confusing.

When it had just been him and Mitsuru, there'd been the odd strategy meeting with Ikutsuki, write-ups every once in a while, maybe a conference with the Kirijo group. The evenings they weren't preparing to battle shadows had mostly been spent doing mundane things. School was still really the biggest thing. Mitsuru would sometimes fall asleep on the couch during exam week, and he would stay up a little later than he maybe should have, working on the seams in his gloves, pretending not to care if Shinjiro walked through the door. It hadn't been _normal,_ exactly, but it'd been… nice. In its own way.

Now all of a sudden there were showers running and food cooking and the television was always on and there were footsteps on the stairwells in the middle of the night. The juniors had brought in energy, which was also kind of nice. They were also clumsy and loud and _needy_ – even Arisato, who seemed to spend ninety percent of her free time making sure everyone liked her.

In the meantime Shinjiro was still missing and Junpei needed help with homework and Yukari was complaining about the girls in her archery club and something, somewhere, was missing. If he could put his finger on it, he'd put it back into place. He couldn't put his finger onto it.

"Breathe, Akihiko," Mitsuru said after he dropped the needle for the third time while repairing his gloves. "Things are progressing smoothly."

"I know." Akihiko felt along the couch blindly and swore when the point reintroduced itself to his fingertip. "That's what worries me." 

* * *

"Well, based on the nature of the damage," Edogawa-sensei said, "I'd place my money on a hydra or a mail truck."

"It was a human."

"Are you sure?" Edogawa squinted, ink-stained fingertips probing the skin over his shoulder and his ribs lightly. "No exobiological indicators whatsoever? No gleaming eyes, no claws? Because I could venture a few suggestions as to future counterattacks. It never hurts to stock one's arsenal with the proper spells."

Akihiko really didn't want to encourage that kind of terrifying accuracy. "It's not as bad as it looks."

"Well, now, let's take a look." Edogawa pulled back and half-turned on his stool, sliding the clipboard from the counter to scan it. "Your general practitioner sent over a harrowing tale about how the convex nearly became the concave. Quite the stuff of legends."

"It wasn't that big a deal. And I heal really fast."

"Not as quickly as you'd probably like," Edogawa said, not looking up from the sheet, "but faster than you should be, maybe."

He didn't really want to touch that one either. "I just need to be cleared to practice. My supervisor says I have to get an okay from you before I can get back into the ring."

Edogawa didn't answer a moment. Then he returned the clipboard to the counter and laced his fingers around his knee. "Did you know the ancient Chinese invented what they considered to be a fool-proof lie detector centuries before the use of modern polygraphs?"

The change of subject caught Akihiko off-guard. Edogawa's face remained blandly pleasant. "Sorry," Akihiko said. "What was that again?"

"The polygraph," Edogawa said. "You know, in a way, the process hasn't really changed – only been expanded to include more indicators. The polygraph itself is merely a standardized measurement of involuntary physiological responses to stress. Rate of respiration, changes in electrical resistance, blood pressure, heart rate."

"Okay," Akihiko said.

"Before these, however, the Chinese used a far simpler technique to determine the party's guilt." Edogawa swung his stool around again. Jar lids clinked on the counter; when he turned back around, there was a small pile of white rice gathered on his palm.

Akihiko stared at it. "What's that for?"

"Guilt," Edogawa said. "Or rather, a way of detecting guilt. Maintaining a falsehood elicits certain physical responses, among these being the decrease in the production of saliva. To gauge this, they would have the suspect hold a small amount of rice under their tongues as they were asked the questions. If the rice became wet, that was the proof of their innocence. If the rice remained dry, that was taken as proof of their guilt."

Akihiko stared a while longer. "You're going to make me eat dry rice?"

"If I did that, I'd have no visual aid for the next person," Edogawa said. "No, my polygraph is much simpler. Lift your arms, Sanada-kun, if you please."

"Huh?"

"Lift your arms. Just for a moment."

Still not understanding, Akihiko obeyed. Edogawa reached out without warning, prodding his ribcage briskly, and Akihiko's breath rushed out in a pained grunt.

Edogawa was still smiling. "That wasn't fair," Akihiko said.

"Blame the Chinese," Edogawa said, and turned, plopping the dry rice back into the container. When he turned back around he held out a signed form. "Two more weeks."

Akihiko took it. His stomach growled as he did, which was probably the biggest lie he'd told so far. 

* * *

Without training or the Dark Hour to wear him out, the dreams slowly began to come back. Not _bad_ , just weird. In one dream he was frustrated because he was supposed to pick up supplies for Miki's bento, but somebody kept moving the pickled plums. He'd try to track them down, but he had a hard time reading the labels because the characters kept jumping, and none of the attendants would tell him where they were. In another dream he was combing the town for Shinjiro and Mitsuru, because the three of them were supposed to turn in a school project the next day that nobody had started working on yet.

He figured there was probably some kind of psychology at work there – always searching for something and never being able to find it – but mostly it was really fucking annoying. It would almost be better having nightmares, because he could dismiss nightmares as trauma. Dreams like the one with Miki made him lie awake in the morning and think about how it would be kind of nice to make Miki a bento again, never mind if he couldn't find the pickled plums.

Then he'd get up and change and start his morning jog, and think that it'd be kind of nice to see her grow, too. To ditch the pigtails and enter middle school and eventually be embarrassed by him, because what girl didn't eventually come to be embarrassed by her brother. He'd be tolerant when she'd pretend not to know him when she and her friends ran into him at Paulownia. He'd help her with her homework even when she'd storm off, saying she just didn't _get it,_ he didn't get _her,_ _niichan, you don't know what it's like to be me._ Later she'd grow to like him again. She'd get a boyfriend (one that he approved of; one that could hold his own in a fight and protect her when Akihiko couldn't) and graduate. Akihiko would pay for college. Watch her get her first job. Get married.

He knew better than everyone else that he wasn't entitled to anything, but there wasn't too much else to think about during a 10k run. Eventually his pace would even out and his heart would calm down and every slap of his footfall on the pavement would echo in his head: _not fair. Not fair. Not fair._

Shinjiro would have a field day with it, but that wasn't the point. 

* * *

Akihiko stuck his head into the faculty office. "Sorry, sir, you wanted to see me?"

"Sanada-kun!" His English teacher was currently rifling through the bottom drawer of his desk and didn't look up. "Good timing. Come in."

A small chair had already been pulled up to the desk. Akihiko made his way in behind it and waited. "One of these days I'll find what I'm looking for at the time I'm looking for it," Miura-sensei said. He didn't hit his head on the underside of the top drawer as he came up, but it was a near thing. "Have a seat."

Akihiko came around the chair and lowered himself into it. Miura-sensei slapped his knees briskly, looked at the desk for a few seconds expectantly, then seemed to rally his attention. He reached over and rescued a stapled assignment from a clothspin holder, then swiveled a bit in his chair and held it out. "Let's get right down to it. Do you recognize this?"

Akihiko glanced at it, then back at him. "The assignment from last week?"

"I'm going to hand them back tomorrow."

The grading corner stood blank. "Okay," Akihiko said.

"Do you remember what the essay was on?"

"Sure."

"Tell me."

"You asked us to discuss between three to five differences between the American education system and ours."

"I'd like you to read a bit of your paper for me."

Akihiko blinked, caught off-guard. "Huh?"

"Your paper," Miura repeated patiently. "I'd like to hear from you before I grade it. Here."

"The whole thing?"

"If you like, but I think a sentence or two will be enough of a refresher. Here, take it."

Mystified, Akihiko took it. Devoid of any corrective marks, it was hard to know what he was supposed to be focusing on. His handwriting looked fine – or at least it was more or less readable. Maybe it was a test to see if he could pronounce the loan words?

He shifted his gaze to the top. The first few lines looked fine. He was about to open his mouth to ask what this was all about when he came across the first error. ' _Travail_ ' _?_ What had he…

Oh, right. He'd been working on it while Mitsuru had been going on about her own thing across the coffee table from him – something about French architecture and its influence on modern designs in the east. She'd slipped into French somewhere down the line and he hadn't corrected her because he'd had a feeling she wasn't really talking to him. It must have accidentally gotten into his head. As mistakes went it was fairly minor.

Still, it was kind of stupid, so maybe Miura just wanted to ding him a little for carelessness. That was fine. Akihiko was about to correct it when a line further down caught his eye. He brought the paper a little closer to his face.

… _greater emphasis on communication in the classroom results in more class peanuts_

… right. It'd been evening and Junpei had been going on and on about his peanut butter being missing. It ended up being in the freezer, probably due to Junpei's habit of stumbling in half-asleep in the middle of the night and making himself a snack and not paying attention to what he put back where.

Akihiko skipped down a little more quickly. There was some shorthand from when Yukari had needed his help on some math and he'd been trying to get the sentence done before he'd lost the train of thought. The second page was full of stray nonsensical marks, like a pencil had gotten up between the papers in his book bag as he traveled. There were four redirectional arrows on the third page, indicating some text reshuffling that never happened. He must have accidentally stapled a sheet from the rough draft into the final when he'd overslept and grabbed up the papers up that morning. The fourth page was missing entirely. The last page…

He studied it until one eye squinted shut.

"It's my policy – and school policy, actually – to accept the work as-is," Miura-sensei said. "But frankly, I'm embarrassed."

"Okay," Akihiko said, kind of right there with him.

"Barring the obvious mistakes, I was more concerned that the body of work itself was not up to your usual standard. You usually have a very precise manner of writing, Sanada-kun. Very insightful, very astute. I was genuinely curious to read your observations on the differences between the systems."

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what happened. I don't usually do this kind of thing."

"Yes, I know. To be honest, if I didn't know any better…" Miura-sensei hesitated, then seemed to think better of whatever he'd been about to say. "Well, what's done is done. The reason I summoned you in here today was because I want to offer you a deal."

Not wanting to look at it anymore, Akihiko had been busy trying to slide it underneath some papers already on the desk. At this he looked up. "A deal?"

"The long and short of it is, I would like you take the time to revise this and turn it into me at the beginning of class on Saturday. Bring me both copies. What I will do is average the grade between the two, and that one will be the one I input into the books."

"You want me to redo it?" Akihiko tried not to look surprised and failed. "But you said that was against school policy, isn't it?"

"Oh, probably."

"I can turn it in a new draft tomorrow—"

"I want you to take time on it. Feverishly working on it through the night won't do you any favors. Or me, for that matter." Miura-sensei studied him a minute. "You're a conscientious student, Sanada-kun – nearly top of the class – which leads me to believe this was a mistake borne from stress, not carelessness. I think that having you redo it will be more instructive than giving you a failing grade. As a matter of fairness I'll extend the same opportunity to others in the class, but I wanted to call you in here in particular to make sure you understood the conditions of my offer."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the only one in the class in danger of failing the assignment."

Akihiko thought, _oh._

"Until Saturday," Miura-sensei said. He slid the paper out from under the others on his desk and snapped it out briskly to Akihiko. "Make it count." 

* * *

He didn't realize he was stressed until he doubled back to touch the cold handle on the door to the dorm with his other hand. It was a childhood tic that re-emerged when he was tired and it was hard as hell to stop. If one toe barked against something, he had to bark the other. If one ear itched, he scratched it and moved on to the other ear. Balanced and equal on both sides.

Eventually he'd toned it down because it'd worried Miki and driven Shinjiro crazy. By the time he'd been in middle school, he'd more or less had it under control. Alone in the kitchen, though, wired and kind of pissed off and with no one to take him to task over it, he let it come back with vengeance. He tapped each toe three times as he got a drink from the fridge, shook out both hands, cracked a knuckle on one hand and then the same knuckle on the other. Some water spilled out over his fingers as he poured it in the glass; he let a dribble out over the other hand, then wiped up the drops from the counter.

Knowing it'd get out of control if he let it, Akihiko indulged himself one more time – pressure on the outside of his foot, then the other – then made himself stop. He ran some times tables in his head to get his mind off of it as he fixed himself a snack. Arisato would be home soon, Junpei in tow. Yukari would come back from practice after that, and Mitsuru would come in last of all, fresh from student council.

Protein drink in hand, he jogged upstairs, intent on taking advantage of the momentary peace to work on his essay. He downed half the can in two gulps, then set it on his desk momentarily as he went about unearthing all the relevant pages. He pulled apart the final draft from the staple, recovered the rough draft from his revisions folder, then laid them all out on the floor. He still couldn't find the fifth page of the final draft, but whatever. He needed to reconstruct the entire thing anyway. With his luck it'd probably show up in the freezer next to Junpei's peanut butter.

He studied them all for a while, holding the can to his lips absently, taking sips as he took in the data. When he was finished with the drink and his thoughts were more or less in order, he tossed the can, got out a fresh sheet, and got to work reorganizing his ideas on paper.

He got as far as listing the properties of each section when he heard the door open and shut downstairs. Arisato, probably. Knowing it'd be impossible to work as soon as Junpei got in, Akihiko sped up the pace. The light in his room continued to mellow, throwing shadows over his work, until the day gave way to evening.

He was just considering turning a light on when he heard Junpei's bellow from downstairs. Figuring now was as good a time as any to stop, Akihiko put down his pencil and stretched, feeling the echo of discomfort in his ribcage. When he felt loose, he gathered up his papers and made his way downstairs.

He could tell just from the way they banged around the common room that the juniors planned to go to Tartarus. Yukari was irritable, eating like a bird at dinner and constantly looking at the clock. Junpei cracked overly loud, unfunny jokes until Yukari finally told him to put a sock in it. The atmosphere was tense and charged, making even the noise of the television seem grating.

Akihiko was a little surprised that Mitsuru approved tonight's mission, seeing as it involved backtracking through Tartarus to look for items. Considering the risks involved with every exploration, it seemed kind of frivolous to him. When he cornered her in the kitchen to ask her about it, however, she lifted a shoulder and said, by way of explanation, "The corporation wants me to expand our knowledge of the current shadows for further research. The fact of the matter is, as far as we know, there's no summit of this tower. Therefore, there is no hurry to reach the top."

Akihiko made his usual preparations that night to follow them in after the fact. His uniform was freshly washed and ironed, so he pulled on some workout pants and a long sleeved t-shirt instead. He didn't put on his gloves, knowing from experience that it'd test Mitsuru's patience, but he did strap on his evoker. On the roster or not, it was SEES policy to never go unarmed during the Dark Hour.

The juniors had all filed out ahead by the time he came down. Mitsuru, the last one out as usual, paused at the door and looked back at him as he jogged down the last of the stairs. "I would prefer you remained here for tonight," she said.

"Huh?" Keyed up himself, Akihiko frowned at her. "Why not?"

"The mission is nonessential and we will not be covering new ground. There is no need for you to supervise."

"What else am I going to do? Come on, we're gonna be—"

"It has come to my attention," Mitsuru said, still mildly, "that your time might be better spent here on schoolwork."

Akihiko stared at her for a while. Mitsuru returned his gaze coolly.

Suddenly it clicked, and Akihiko blurted, "Wait a second, you _know?_ "

"You know I keep myself well-acquainted with all the SEES members' academic records." Mitsuru had only the barest hint of a raised eyebrow. "While I realize there has been a certain amount of upheaval here as of late, I expect you to perform as well as you always have, Akihiko. Failing to do so could potentially result in meddling from the school, and for reasons I don't have to explain to you, I would prefer that that not happen."

Akihiko was still stuck on more important things. "Miura _told_ you? But he was already offering me a way to change the grade."

"Yes, that was convenient," Mitsuru said, mellow enough that he was instantly suspicious. "It would behoove you to take advantage of that opportunity. Good night, Akihiko."

He stood there, still staring, as the door swung shut gently behind her.

Eventually he retreated upstairs, changed out of his workout clothes, and sat down at his desk. He couldn't focus. When the Dark Hour came he was forced to give up entirely, seeing as there was no light in the dorm by which to work with. Instead he sat on his bed, watching the moonlight angle unnaturally into the window, listening to the darkness move in the night, brushing up against the living and sliding back off again, slick as oil.

When the Dark Hour was over, he rolled over, slammed his pillow over his head, and closed his eyes until his body got bored fighting off sleep.

In other news, Arisato could apparently make shadows explode with zios. Akihiko tried to pretend it didn't piss him off, but really, it sort of did. Probably most of all.


	2. Reality Check

**Inversion**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – Reality Check**

Six letters fell out from his shoe locker on Wednesday. One of them had candy in it that broke upon impact and one spilled what looked like a pile of beach sand onto his shoe. "Oh, come on," Akihiko said. "They do realize I'm the one that has to clean this stuff up, right?"

"Oh, score." Kenichi had already leaned over and picked up the first package, letting his bag slip to the floor. " _Sweet_ , it's guava candy. You don't care if I steal this, right?"

"Knock yourself out." He had class in six minutes. He could either clean it up now and be late, or clean it up later after a couple dozen pairs of feet had tracked it all over the place.

He went and got a broom from the utility closet. "Got a great haul today, man," Kenichi said, mouth already full by the time Akihiko returned. He'd pried open two more of the letters and was scanning the contents, food packages stored in the crook of his elbow. "Let's see. Strawberry _daifuku_ from Anchan in class 3-B… soda hard candy from Haruka-chan in 2-A… oh, nice, mango gummies. This is awesome. You mind if I steal these too?"

"You know the guys call you 'Kentan' behind your back, right?" Where was the dust pan? Whatever, he'd just sweep it out the door. "You really shouldn't be eating that stuff if it's not in the package."

"First of all, they call me 'Kentan' to my face, because gluttony is a life choice and I've already owned it," Kenichi said. "Second of all, what do you think they're trying to do, slip you a mickey? What are they even going to be able to do to you when you're in class?"

"Don't underestimate them." The beach sand turned out to be too fine to be picked up by the broom's bristles and also they were down to four minutes. Akihiko felt the beginnings of an aneurysm throbbing in his skull. "You could help, you know."

"No thanks." Kenichi squinted at the message on the heart-shaped card. "'Dear Sanada-kun. I have been watching you for the past two years and I just can't hold in my love anymore. Please meet me by the fountain after school.'"

" _Don't_. Just throw them away."

"Look at this one." Kenichi held up a smaller card that was covered with glitter. "'Dear Sanada-san. I can't stand being apart from you anymore. Please meet me by the fountain before I'm consumed by the searing flames of my love.' Dude, this could be an actual showdown. You think they'll let me watch while they wrestle out their differences in the water?"

"Just give it a rest already." A few more hard swipes of the broom had the sand scattered enough to form a film instead of a puddle. Akihiko stared at it in consternation. "Did the one who sent the sand say what it was for?"

"Hold on, I'll check." Still holding the snacks in the crook of his arm, Kenichi stooped and snagged up a small, clear bag with a card stapled to it. "Dude, this one's actually kinda cute," he admitted as he scanned it. "She says the sand is from her beachfront property her dad owns out in Okinawa. She wants to take you on vacation there during Golden Week this year."

"Really?" Akihiko was in the midst of taking the broom back, but at this he paused. "There's some good currents out there. That'd be a great workout if I could work around the crowds."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's why she's inviting you there." Kenichi rolled his eyes. "Have you ever actually said yes to any of these?"

"No." Two minutes left, but Akihiko liked to think his can-do attitude made him a valuable asset. He closed the door of the utility closet, shut his shoe locker, and swept up his bag. "Come on, we can still make the bell if we hurry."

Despite his show of apathy, Kenichi loped after him readily enough, stuffing the snacks in his own bookbag as they started up the now-deserted stairs. "You do the homework?"

Akihiko threw a mystified look over his shoulder. "Why do you care? It's too late for you to copy it anyway."

"Yeah, you're a real charmer," Kenichi muttered. His footsteps echoed behind Akihiko's as he shifted his bag around to rest across the small of his back. "I can totally tell why all these girls are into you."

Akihiko glanced at his watch as he rounded the corner. He hoped he'd turned the sound off on his phone, but it was too late at this point to check. He touched the rail to steady himself on the next turn, taking long strides to push himself up the final steps to the landing.

There was a flash of red and the thud of impact. Caught utterly off-guard by the wrong-way traffic, Akihiko reeled back and flailed stupidly for the wall, only just managing to avoid tumbling back down the stairs. Arisato was already laughing as she skidded across the floor of the landing. "Sorry!" she said, breathless. "Sorry, sorry. My bad."

There were stars going off behind his eyes. Akihiko clung to the rail a while longer, stunned by how much that had hurt. "Are you okay?" Arisato asked. Her bookbag had gone bouncing down the stairs at impact, but the rest of her appeared to be unruffled as she climbed off the floor unaided. "Did I hurt you?"

"What are you doing?" Akihiko finally got out, breathing shallowly around his screaming ribs as he groused. "Class is the other way."

"I'm just running an errand," Arisato said. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been going down on that side. I just didn't think anyone would be there. It was my fault."

Kenichi came up beside Akihiko, Arisato's rescued bookbag in hand. To Kenichi's credit, he placed a steadying hand on Akihiko's elbow before he started goggling at Arisato. "Thank you." Arisato switched her charming grin to him, taking the bag off his hands without a trace of timidity. "I can't believe it didn't burst open. You must be good luck."

"Uh," Kenichi said. He was rapidly reddening.

"What do you mean, _running an errand?_ " Akihiko dragged her focus back where it belonged. "It's almost time for the class."

"If I don't do it now I'll forget to do it later. It's okay, I'll be back in a flash." Arisato shouldered her bag and sent a wink to Kenichi, who again blanched at her direct attention. "See you after school."

Before Akihiko could stop her, Arisato skirted past them and resumed her descent. Despite her vapid tone, there was a brisk, grim nature to her stride that took her quickly out of their sight, leaving only the echo of her retreating footsteps.

The two of them waited until those faded into silence. "Okay," Kenichi said. "Who the hell was _she?_ "

"Arisato Hamuko." The pain in his ribs had finally died down. Akihiko couldn't tell if he felt exasperated or amused. Mostly he just felt late. He pushed himself from the wall and freed himself from Kenichi's support. "She lives in my dorm."

"Really?" Kenichi jerked. "She's seriously hot, man."

She was seriously reckless. And seriously in need of a reality check if she thought she could get away with skipping class whenever she felt like it. "I'll make sure to tell her you said that."

"Yeah, please do," Kenichi said. "And tell her my name. First and last. And what class I'm in. And tell her I'm into whatever she's into."

"She's not into…" He was about to say 'guys' but that'd have weird connotations, and suddenly Akihiko realized he didn't actually know what she was into. She flirted with everyone regardless of gender, but it tended to be harmless flirting with no bait attached. The way she went on with Junpei you'd think there was something there, but Yukari had vetoed the notion as soon as he'd brought it up.

"You okay, man?" Kenichi repeated, and Akihiko realized he'd been spacing out. "You took kind of a hit back there. Want me to take you to Edogawa's?"

"I'm fine." He brought his attention back forward, tightening his grip on his bookbag and finishing his journey up the stairs.

… something was weird.

* * *

...

There was no Tartarus that night, so Akihiko sequestered himself in his room and turned serious attention to revision. He managed to get the introductory statement and first two points rewritten before rising out of his work naturally, stirred by his stomach and a bladder that needed emptying.

He went to relieve himself, squinting into the mirror as he rinsed his hands. There were hollows under his eyes but they weren't dramatic. Nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't fix. There _was_ an ominous tightness at the base of his neck that hinted at a future headache, which meant he either needed to call it for the night or put some food down his neck. Deciding he'd earned the latter, Akihiko dried his hands and headed down to the kitchen, blinking to adjust his vision in the dark stairwell.

He knew the Kirijo company had drawn up its blueprints for the building with a specific purpose in mind, but even being privy to that purpose, the layout of the SEES dorm had never made a lot of sense to him. From top to bottom, the dorm was an exercise in haphazard plotting and – from what he could tell – a metric ton of wasted space. The third floor was a good example, with its huge common room and its sprawling hallway with three doors on one side and one door on the other. _One door._ Akihiko knew there was plenty of space available in those walls based on the layout of the boys' hall. What the hell was the rest of the space on that side of the girls' hall being used for? Why just one room when there could be three?

He'd read enough junior detective novels as a kid to be tempted to knock along the wall for hidden rooms, but it was hard do anything on the third floor without the girls getting in his face about it. He didn't even like passing it to go up to the fourth floor for their strategy meetings. It was just a double-standard forbidden zone, the way Mitsuru could invite himself into his room but he had to wait outside hers until she opened the door for him.

The worst offender to Akihiko by far was the kitchen. The reception area on the first floor bottomed out into a table and a bar, backed by a cabinet full of novelty dishes that nobody dared to breathe on. The kitchen itself was located through a closed door next to that wall cabinet, forcing people to walk behind the full length of the bar just to access it.

The placement of it struck Akihiko as being inexcusably weird. Why hide the kitchen? It was nothing to be ashamed of. It was easily the most beautiful room in the building. The room inside looked like it didn't even belong in the SEES dorm, with its black marble counters and white walls and chrome appliances and state of the art cookingware. Why make the entrance to it look like a utility closet?

It was late and the community area was empty, so Akihiko didn't expect to run into anyone as he pushed his way through the door. He was unpleasantly surprised to find Junpei lounging against the counter, a half-empty bottle of Skippy and some rice crackers on the counter behind him. The crunching noise of the crackers between his teeth was thunderous in the stillness of the kitchen. "Hey, senpai," Junpei said, muffled.

It was noncommittal enough that Akihiko felt he could get away with a nod. Junpei continued to munch, eyes slanted sleepily as he zoned out at the opposite wall.

Not really in the mood for company but too hungry to wait, Akihiko crossed over to the refrigerator. The rush of cool air and the brightness of the light made him blink. He ducked a little to peer in, scanning the contents of the shelves. Living in community space had rubbed off on them all; most things were packaged, taped off, or labeled clearly. _What to have_. He didn't feel like heating anything up. Mostly he just wanted to stuff something into his mouth until his stomach shut up and he could get back to work.

He rifled through his stuff and emerged with a miscellaneous assortment. Avocado, three power bars, a protein shake, two slices of bread. He shut the door with his foot and laid them out on the counter, then went to find a knife.

"Woah."

Junpei's voice jolted him. He'd forgotten he had company. He slanted a look over as he slid the cutting board from its place by the stove to find Junpei goggling at him. "What?" he said, taken aback by the intensity.

"You're seriously gonna eat all that this late at night?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"I dunno. Seems kinda…" Junpei broke his stare and shrugged with his wrist, shoving in another mouthful of peanut butter. "Guess I didn't know you were working out again. I figured you'd be taking it easy."

"I'm not working out." He placed the avocado on the cutting board, lined up the knife, placed his hand on the blunt side, and put his weight into it. With two pushes, the knife cut through the core, and the avocado lay in halves.

"Really?" Junpei was back to staring. "And you're eating all that power stuff anyway? That stuff's loaded with sugar. You know that, right?"

"So what?" He peeled the rind off the halves and tossed them.

"You're gonna get porky, man."

"Look, I didn't come in spouting off about the crap you're eating," Akihiko said, fishing around in the cupboard for the soy sauce. He drizzled it over the avocado halves, followed it with a sprinkling of sesame oil, then put the bottles away. He then slid the two slices of bread into the toaster and pressed down on the lever without bothering to look at the setting. "Or the way you shoveled down dinner, for that matter. Don't you ever slow down?"

"Hey, I don't know about you, but I'm _earning_ those calories," Junpei grinned. "You shoulda seen the way we took down those shadows last night. I swear we got two truckloads. We had to leave some of it behind. Hamuko was pretty pumped about it, though. I think she trades off some of that stuff for money. I dunno who'd buy it though."

Akihiko opened up the first power bar and bit into it, chewing the mouthful as went back into the fridge to fish for his water. "Well, whatever floats your boat," Junpei said, and popped the rest of his own snack into his mouth. He then made a show of stretching, scratching his side leisurely, and sauntered off towards the exit.

"Junpei," Akihiko said.

Junpei looked over his shoulder. "I'm not cleaning that up," Akihiko said. "In fact I'm going to put a sign there saying whose fault it is."

"I'll get it in the morning."

"You'll get it tonight or Mitsuru will give it to you in the morning."

Junpei paused. "She doesn't come in here."

"Then Arisato will. You know how she is about the kitchen."

Junpei shifted his weight, looking like he was weighing the odds. Then, with a huff of annoyance, he came back in and grumpily started gathering up his mess. "When _are_ you coming back to rotation, anyway?"

"Probably next month." The toast popped. Akihiko polished off his power bar and went to attend to it. "I'll be ready by then, don't worry."

"Whatever," Junpei said. "We're fine pulling your weight. Who knows? Maybe by the time you come back, you'll be taking orders from yours truly. Seeing as you're so out of practice and all."

"Keep it up," Akihiko said. "Really."

"Hey man, no need to get all defensive," Junpei grinned. He stole the trash bin, scooped the rest of his crumbs into it, and opened the cupboard above his head to replace his peanut butter. He stopped. "Huh."

Mouth full of toast, Akihiko looked at him questioningly. Junpei was regarding something in the cupboard. After a moment he reached in and pulled it closer, and the rustle of paper caught Akihiko's attention.

Junpei scanned it over, then held it out to him. "This yours?"

… so that's where the fifth page of his essay had went.

* * *

...

He figured out what was bothering him somewhere between the point Junpei tried to flip Arisato's skirt up and the point that she laughed it off rather than kneeing him in past, present, and future groin.

In general, Akihiko tended to take things at face value. He had better things to do with his time than lie to himself and to others. Mostly it just confused him to discover someone was misleading him, because hadn't people figured out life was easier if you just said what you meant?

Shinjiro called it being gullible and rode him mercilessly about it. Mitsuru was a little nicer, using words like 'uncomplicated' and 'straightforward'. What it really boiled down to was that Akihiko knew exactly what it took to make his own life run efficiently. It was a specific combination of hard work, discipline, and self-awareness. There wasn't time for deception. When he slipped too far in one category, things began to unravel. When he was balanced… memories stayed where he put them.

Something was out of whack, which at the moment seemed to be mostly due to the fact that Arisato wouldn't stay out of his grill. She brought him back a slice of cake from Paulownia on Thursday and he'd turned it down, which was probably rude but also who cared. There were a hundred other people around for her to lavish her attention on. She didn't need to waste money on him.

Afterwards, working on his essay, he surprised himself by suddenly feeling like a bastard. It's true he didn't like sweets, but dismissing overzealous girls usually necessitated forgetting about it afterwards. He couldn't forget about it. Something about her face or her hair or the way she smiled at him even after he'd blown her off.

The problem wasn't that she ignored his rebuffs or even that she came back for more. It was that something in the back of his head told him that, no matter how annoying it was, he was the lucky one in this situation. And it _pissed him off._

* * *

...

Four more cards fell out of his shoe locker on Friday. Akihiko picked them up and threw them into the trash without looking. One smelled like cinnamon and one left a smear on his fingers that he hoped wasn't poisonous. "That's such a waste," Kenichi said. "At least hand them over or give them away or something."

"You going to practice today?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Do you mind giving this to Taro-sensei?" Akihiko dug into his bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "I want to see if I can borrow some of the team's spare weight training equipment so I can work out at home. All I've got is a bag."

Kenichi took it, folding it up tighter and sliding it into his back pocket. "If you're okay enough to work out, why don't you come back to practice?"

"I have to be approved by Edogawa first."

"Seriously? Why don't you just forge his signature or something?"

"Yeah," Akihiko said. "Pretty sure that would come back to bite me."

"I mean, can't you talk to him? Tell him you're okay? We can always take it easy on you."

"I don't know." It hadn't occurred to him actually. The first check-up had been pretty humiliating, so he hadn't put much thought into going back. He had a hospital check up on the first of May, though, so that could be good news or bad news. In the meantime, maybe a drop-in to appeal to Edogawa's mercy wouldn't hurt.

He took a mental note and gathered up his supplies to head to class. The day passed slowly, the students restless and visible distracted. The window was propped open, the breeze from it a little chilly but fragrant. Akihiko found his own mind wandering a few times, wondering if his supervisor would grant his request. All the sports club advisors were dependent on the reports from the school nurse, so there was a chance that it'd be vetoed. The fact was, Akihiko was getting anxious and, more importantly, was starting to lose muscle tone. Gaining that back would take time, and he'd rather not start any further in the hole than he already was.

When the dismissal bell rang, he quickly gathered up his bag and edged past the stream of students. The door to the clinic was shut as usual, the hallway more or less emptied out by the time he made it down.

Akihiko had never admitted it, but weird ingredients aside, he secretly kind of liked the clinic. Edogawa had made a point to add homey touches on his own time. There was a bright green tablecloth on the table, on top of which sat a vase of flowers. There were bushy, colorful plants on top of the filing cabinet and more by the supply closet. Tons of color with none of it seeming to match, making the place haphazard and oddly soothing.

He made his way through the room, peeking around the privacy curtains, but the room was empty. The kettle was on the hot plate, already starting to breathe out a gentle trail of steam, so he had a feeling Edogawa wouldn't be long. He sat himself down at the table in the middle of the room, sliding off his bag and letting it drop gently to the floor, and waited.

He was up again almost immediately. He wandered restlessly around the room, glancing at the clock, making his rounds until the tea kettle began to squeal. Glancing one more time at the closed door, Akihiko took it off the hot plate and searched around for something to put it on. During his perusal of the room he spotted the scale in the corner, and for some reason that gave him pause.

… now that he thought about it, he hadn't bothered to weigh himself since getting injured. He didn't own a scale at home, and at any rate there'd been no reason to try to make weight while he wasn't boxing. Now that he'd been off for a while, it'd probably be good to assemble his stats so he could tailor his training regimen.

He ended up putting the kettle down on a stack of towels by the window. Figuring he was already intruding and might as well go for broke, Akihiko took off his shoes, made sure the bar was level at zero on the face of the scale, and stepped onto it.

The red hand swung wildly for a time before settling. Akihiko leaned forward so he could read the etched-in numbers.

 _66.7._

He stared at the number for a long time, displeased, turning things over in his head. He'd only been off for a few weeks. Was there something he'd been—

Edogawa said mildly from behind him, "Lose something?"

He jumped and nearly fell off the scale. Edogawa had already shut the door, several packages tucked into the crook of one arm. He looked to be chewing something. "Oh, geez." Akihiko hastily jumped down, jamming his feet back into his shoes. "Sorry. I shouldn't have used your equipment without asking."

"Far be it from me to chastise an adventurous spirit." Edogawa's coat swirled around his legs as he crossed the room. He settled the packages down on the counter next to the plants and took a glance at the kettle on the towels, but when he spoke it was merely to ask, "What brings you in today, Sanada-kun?"

"Is this a bad time?" Edogawa's demeanor was hard to read. "I can come back."

"I always have time for a mysterious malady, but I'm afraid I have a far more uninteresting staff meeting to attend in a few minutes, so our appointment will have to be brief." Edogawa bent, lips moving as he read the labels on the drawers, then pulled one open and began to search through it. "What can I do for you?"

Akihiko watched him a moment, distracted by the quick, efficient way Edogawa was sorting through his things. It was strange to see him on-task. "I came to talk to you about maybe moving the date up for when I can return."

"Mmm," Edogawa said. He unearthed a file and held it up to the light, then put it back.

"To boxing club." Akihiko waited, but Edogawa said nothing. "My ribs are healing pretty fast and my arm feels good. I figured maybe I could go a few days early, take it easy? You know, mostly supervise? And then get back to real training when the first rolls around—"

"No," Edogawa said.

Taken aback by the blunt refusal, Akihiko stopped. "Sanada-kun, I understand that you're anxious to get back to training," Edogawa said. "And while it's true you've had a speedy – some would say miraculous – recovery so far, you need to recognize that your body needs time to heal. Fractured ribs, even hairline fractures, take four to six weeks to heal. In the meantime they're highly vulnerable to further damage. One careless hit from a teammate could put you out for much longer."

"But I'm _fine_ ," Akihiko insisted, alarmed by the calm tone. "I know how to take care of myself, I know how to roll with a hit—"

"You have a hospital checkup on the first of May, don't you? If they send an encouraging report through, I'll give you permission to attend practice. But just so you're aware, I'm not giving you clearance to participate until the hospital fully clears you."

"Sir, I'm really getting out of shape. I'm missing a ton of practice, and with all the meets coming up, I can't afford to take it easy."

"Unfortunately, that's what's in the cards for the moment." Apparently finding the file he was looking for, Edogawa turned his knee and shut the drawer. When he straightened and turned to Akihiko, the light had lifted off his glasses for a moment, revealing a sympathetic but unyielding expression. "I realize it's difficult to hear. I'm sorry."

He could feel the flush on his face. Embarrassed, angry, Akihiko retrieved his bag and stood, tossing it over his shoulder. "Come again after your check-up," Edogawa said. "Once they send me a positive report, I'll put the approval through right away. You won't be able to participate in anything involving physical contact, but you can at least work out with the team."

Akihiko couldn't bring himself to say anything else. As he neared the door, Edogawa said from behind him, "Sanada-kun."

Akihiko looked over his shoulder.

"Be patient," Edogawa said.

* * *

...

It turned out that seven other students had capitalized on Miura's deal to resubmit their essays. Akihiko made up the back of the line to turn them in on Saturday, shifting his weight one way and then shifting it equally the other way. "Ah hah," Miura said when he reached the desk at last. "Sanada-kun. Well, what do you think? Was it worth it?"

"I worked hard," Akihiko said honestly. "I think it's a lot better."

"No French?"

"No French."

"I'd say that I hope you learned something, but honestly, I think you knew better from the start," Miura said. "Let's try to keep our heads above water in the future, shall we?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

He ignored the glances he got as he sat back down. He was busy.

* * *

...

Shinjiro met him at the hospital with an expression of pure homicide. "The hell is this?"

"Sorry to call you here, I just thought—"

"When the fuck did this happen, Aki?"

"Shinji, I told you about this ages ago."

"You told me you got 'knocked around'. That ain't the same as 'got my ribcage bashed in'."

"They're going to kick you out if you keep yelling," Akihiko said.

Shinjiro threw himself down into the visitor's chair by the hospital bed and slid his fingers up under his beanie to scratch his hairline roughly. "Look, I just figured this wouldn't be too out of your way," Akihiko said. "I needed to ask you—"

"How they hell would you know what's out of my way or not?"

Akihiko was one hot second away from kicking his ass for him when the doctor chose that moment to walk in. "If he's not a relative he'll need to wait outside," the doctor said without preamble, still flipping through Akihiko's chart.

"We're foster brothers," Akihiko said, which actually wasn't technically a lie. Also he had a feeling that Shinjiro might disappear out of spite if he made it out the door, and Akihiko really needed some questions answered before that happened.

It was his third checkup in as many weeks, so the exam went quickly. A cursory reflex check, some stretching to test range of motion. There were the usual questions. Did he feel any tingling, any numbness in his arm? Was he having any difficulty breathing? How bad was the pain from one to ten?

Akihiko could feel Shinjiro's sharp eyes boring into the side of his head. "It's really something else," the doctor said at last. "I've never seen a posterior subluxation heal this fast."

"Do I get a good report?" he asked.

"You're well on your way, at any rate. I want you to continue the stretching exercises I gave you last time so we can be sure you get back the full range of motion in your shoulder. The ribs need some more time to catch up."

"I'd really like to go to practice to work out with the team. No impacts, just some weight and cross-training."

"I don't want you weight training on that arm for another two weeks," the doctor said. "As for cross-training, that's really up to you. I'd rather you not swim. Stationary bikes would be fine."

"Running?"

"I can't imagine you'd want to, but I won't forbid it."

It was something at least. "Would you mind sending the report in to my school nurse? He won't lift the suspension until you put it through."

"That I will." The doctor picked up the chart. "You're doing well. I'll see you in here next week. With any luck we'll have you back on your normal schedule by the end of the month."

"Thanks," Akihiko said. "I appreciate it."

"Come out when you're ready and the nurse will check you out at the window."

"All right."

The doctor closed the door behind him. Akihiko reached for his shirt. "Posterior subluxation," Shinjiro said from the corner, still slouched in the chair. His anger seemed to have died down, leaving only his usual intensity. "That's the rare one, right? The hell did that happen?"

"It was pretty stupid." He slid his left arm in the sleeve carefully. The ligament stretches always left him sore. "I found out too late the shadow I was battling repelled electricity. I was standing in water and I threw a zio, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and my shoulder was out of joint. I guess that's how it usually happens – shock or seizure. I don't know how the Kirijo group spun it."

Shinjiro shook his head. Akihiko put his other arm through and began buttoning up his shirt. "I don't have anything for you," Shinjiro said abruptly.

"Anything you have is more than I've got," Akihiko said. "Look, you have firsthand experience with the Apathy Syndrome. You actually know people that have it, and that brings you a lot closer to it than me or Mitsuru."

"You know what I know."

"I really don't," he said. "The news is more interested in scaring people than it is giving the facts. You've seen how it _starts._ You know what to watch for."

Shinjiro shifted his weight. He sat like a girl, one leg crossed neatly over the other, which in less serious times would be cause enough for Akihiko to rib him. "I can't name names."

"I'm not asking you to."

"And I've never seen how it starts. No one has." His voice was matter of fact but his gaze was somewhere off to Akihiko's side. "It's like they're just distracted at first. They don't pay attention to what you're saying. They look kind of tired. S'easy to miss at first."

"What changes?"

Shinjiro didn't answer a moment, and Akihiko was forced to remember that while Shinjiro wouldn't admit it, he was probably talking about people he knew fairly well. Maybe even friends. Akihiko closed his mouth and opted for patience instead, finishing up the buttons on his shirt and sliding his vest down over his head, giving Shinjiro time to figure it out. "They start answering questions nobody's asking," Shinjiro said finally. "They look right at you when they talk, but it don't make sense. Words will just be missing for no reason. The sentences get shorter and shorter until they're just making grunts."

"The news said they stop eating on their own." There were probably ways to be more delicate about it, but neither of them had ever been good at pulling their punches. "Do they starve?"

"Dunno. On their own, probably."

"Did they still know you? When they recognize you when you talked to them?"

Shinjiro only shrugged a shoulder. "You mentioned you see a lot of it," Akihiko said. "Have you noticed it happening anywhere in particular? Mitsuru said she wondered if the numbers were different depending on the socio-economic level."

"Yeah, she would ask that." Shinjiro shook his head again. "Far as I can see, money's got nothing to do with it. It's happening everywhere. Guy's more'n girls mostly, but I dunno if that'll change."

He tucked his shirt into his pants and tugged his vest down over his waistband. Finished dressing, Akihiko hooked a finger in the collar of his jacket and slung it over his good shoulder. That done, he stood for a long time, looking at Shinjiro.

Eventually Shinjiro got bored of evading his gaze and looked back up at him. "Where have you been?" Akihiko asked.

"Don't start."

"I mean it. You went off the map. We had to use Penthesilea to track you down."

Shinjiro's voice was both dry and inflectionless in the way only he could manage. "Then you know where I've been."

"You know what I mean," Akihiko said.

Shinjiro didn't answer. Akihiko opened his mouth to pursue it when there came a knock on the door. Keeping eye contact, he called, "Yeah?"

The door opened a crack. "Sanada-kun, there's been an issue with your contact information," the nurse said. "When you're ready, please make sure you come by the front desk. We want to make sure we have the data updated before you leave."

Shinjiro didn't move. "I'll be right back," Akihiko said. "Don't go anywhere."

He was so preoccupied that he nearly drew a blank trying to give them the right numbers. By the time he'd straightened everything out and had returned to the room, he was unpleasantly surprised to see all three juniors standing inside. Impatient and not really in the mood for interruptions, he was a little curt with them. "What are all of you guys doing here?"

"We came to see you!" Yukari greeted him with a genuine grin that faded as her eyes swept him up and down. "But… it doesn't look like anything's wrong with you."

"I'm just here for a checkup." He looked over their heads, caught Shinjiro's eye.

He wasn't surprised when Shinjiro stood up, hands still shoved deep into his pockets. His voice was back down to a monotone. "Is that it, Aki?"

Akihiko gritted his teeth a second, but with the juniors looking right at him, he had no choice but to play along. "Yeah. Thanks."

Shinjiro made a tsking noise in the back of his throat. "I don't have time for this shit."

Akihiko very nearly punched him out. He grit his teeth instead and bullied down the urge, standing ramrod straight as Shinjiro came up to the group. After staring down the juniors until they scrambled out of his way, he walked right past Akihiko, close enough to let him feel the brush of his coat on his elbow. Then he was gone, footfalls fading down the hall.

"Who was that?" Junpei asked, after the silence stretched for a while.

For no reason other than she hadn't said anything yet, Akihiko switched his gaze to Arisato. She was looking intently at the doorway. There was no smile at all on her face, but her eyes were bright and sharp. "Just a friend from school," he murmured, keeping an eye on her. When she finally looked back at him, there was still no trace of an expression. The result was eerie but oddly arresting.

When he came back to the area the next day, Shinjiro had already disappeared.


	3. Fly

There was an enthusiastic welcome waiting for him when he walked into boxing practice for the first time, but the celebration was brief. The team was training for the first meet of the season and they were hyper-focused, intense, ready to nab their first win. Within ten minutes they were done with their warm-up jog and were starting their weight-training rotation, shouting encouragement to each other across the room. "They look good," Akihiko said. "You've done well."

"Well, it hasn't been easy." Ryouta scratched his head. "You know, when I got voted in to be vice president, I never thought I'd be taking over the club. It's been kind of surreal."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to dump that on you." Akihiko cast his eye over them. A few weeks had done a world of difference. He could see some visible weight loss on some of them, some more muscle tone on others. They'd have a good shot at the meet if they kept their heads in the game. "You've done a good job. Wish I could've been here."

"Yeah, it'll be good to have you back. We've been trying this new training regime and it's really been working out. You'll see it in action today, you'll have to tell me what you think."

"Training regime?" Startled from his inspection, Akihiko glanced at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, man, it's awesome," Ryouta said. "Sorry, I could've sworn I told you. You've seen those like, ultimate fitness videos, right? How they're constantly moving, one station to another, bam-bam-bam, right? We don't do it every day because it's kind of grueling, but it's basically, it's two people in the ring, and the others are at stations kind of like this one, and we hop every like five minutes. But the entire time you're at that station, you're pushing _hard._ No stopping. It's a mix of cardio and core. Just keeping moving, all the time."

"You guys came up with this on your own?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's nothing you wouldn't have done if you'd been here. I just figured I'd think like you."

Oh. Feeling like they were operating at two different speeds, Akihiko shook his head and forced himself to focus. "Do have charts or something, so I can look it over and see what's going on?"

"Oh, right. Sorry, should've thought of that," Ryouta said. "Ah… not exactly. Not right now? I'd have to write those up for you. It'd just take a little bit, though. I'll get on it."

"If you want, I can always—"

"Hold on, sorry," Ryouta said. " _Sato!_ What the hell, man? You call those pullups? Sorry, scuze me, be right back."

He jogged off hurriedly towards the pull-up station to begin bawling out the freshmen. Akihiko stood there a moment, wondering what to do.

When he remembered, he stripped off his warm-up jacket and left to go work out on the exercise bike. It was just as mind-numbing as he remembered.

* * *

.

The moon was almost full and there was a loose wire in him. For the next several days he took the long way home on the train, meandering downtown, circling around Paulownia, ballooning the relatively short trip up to several hours. When he got home his feet would ache but his head would be clearer, but something was off. The calibration was screwy.

Mitsuru was visibly on edge as the full moon closed in, though as a general rule she handled personal stress better than he did. The back of his mind was always hung up on Shinjiro's whereabouts, but it was that general sense of displacement was drove him to longer walks, to later nights. He felt sloppy and disorganized. More often than not he'd come to meetings with a sense of _why am I here,_ which was really just about the size of everything. He was a creature of the now because the past hurt and the future didn't count, and right now, the present sucked. The present sucked a lot.

The instant it became clear on the night of the full moon that they were dealing with one of the monster shadows like the one that attacked him, the fire in him became an inferno. He went to Mitsuru and weathered nearly ten minutes of being ignored while she kept herself glued to the monitor, lights flickering in unsettling, arrhythmic patterns over her face. "You have to let me go," Akihiko said, once the alarms started sounding on the consoles.

"No." Mitsuru was pale from lack of sleep, but she was deadly focused in a way he recognized from Tartarus. She was already gathering up her things – radio, maps, tools – and didn't look ready to budge over to make room for him.

He tried anyway. "Mitsuru, I _know_ what's out there. I've seen first hand what it can do. _They're not ready_."

"No, you're _not_ ready," Mitsuru snapped. "We're not having this discussion tonight, Akihiko. I would have thought you would have accepted the reality of your situation by now. Your ribs aren't finished healing."

"Who cares about my ribs? Yukari can still barely stand to use her Evoker. Junpei hits himself almost as often as he hits the shadows. Arisato…" _is just a kid. Is just a girl. Is just a rookie._ All of those were wrong but he didn't have time to refine his point. "Mitsuru, I can fight. Even just to buff or summon zios. I'll stay out of the strike zone, hang back, whatever. But I have to be in there."

"No." Her expression hadn't changed at all, but something firm and dangerous had settled in her tone. "I've been witness to their strength. Night after night they have proven themselves. You may have doubts as to their capabilities, but I have none."

"It's not that I think they'll fail," Akihiko said, lowering his voice. "I just think they're going to be in over their heads. What if Arisato's on the other end of an attack like the one that hit me? We lose her, all exploration stops. You know that. Nobody's expendable here. Any of them get injured, we're all crippled."

She said nothing, but her mouth pressed into a hard line. He knew her well enough to know what she was considering his words. Before she could respond, the door to the meeting room flew open. "We're here!" Yukari called breathlessly. Junpei came in behind her, followed closely by Arisato, who was tying up her hair as she ran, a row of bobby pins fanned out between her teeth. "Sorry we're late!"

"Where is it?" Junpei was already raring to go, zero evidence pointing to the fact that he'd been asleep only minutes earlier. His baseball cap was down low over his eyes, his expression flinty. "I'll rip it a new one!"

Mitsuru took her eyes from readings on the control panel and turned to face them, hands bracing either elbow. "We've detected a shadow outside of Tartarus," she said. "We don't know for sure, but we think it's another big one."

Arisato finished her ponytail and began expertly pinning the numeral into her hair. Serious as the situation was, Akihiko had to wonder how girls did that sort of thing without a mirror. "We have to defeat any of them we find, as quickly as possible," Mitsuru said. "Most people don't know the Dark Hour exists. But if half the city is destroyed… there will be panic."

 _Yeah, okay._ Trust Mitsuru to understate an apocalypse. "In other words, we need to kick some ass, right?" Junpei's grin was feral. "Well, count me in!"

Akihiko caught Yukari rolling her eyes. His Evoker was on but his gloves were in his room. He'd have to grab them before they left.

He made a move for the door when Mitsuru's voice stopped him. "Akihiko, you stay here and wait for the chairman."

"Wha—" He spun with a growl. "Are you _kidding?_ I'm going!"

"You still need to recover." There was absolutely no latitude in her tone. Her eyes were narrow and sharp as shards. "You'll just be a hindrance."

She may as well have hit him across the face. He stood frozen with disbelief, conscious of the juniors' curious eyes on him. "They'll fare better than you in your current state," Mitsuru said. Then her voice dropped, almost soft, but with an edge of steel. "Have faith in them, Akihiko. They're ready. You'll get your chance. For now, wait for the chairman."

Which was the ultimate knife in his defense, because if he said anything contrary to _that,_ he'd look like the unsupportive senpai who was lying when he'd praised their progress. Shaking with betrayal, teeth gritted so hard his jaw hurt, he looked away and ground his gaze into the floor.

Junpei, oblivious to the tension as always, chimed in cheerfully. "Relax! I've got it covered!"

 _You're going to get your asses handed to you._ He had to pick himself up or it'd make them anxious, and he couldn't have that on his conscience as they went off to fight.

He lifted his head and sought Arisato's gaze. She returned it with a quirk to her lips. "You're in charge," he said.

He heard Junpei audibly recoil with indignation in the background, but his attention was for her. She was perfectly coiffed despite having done her hair on the run. Her uniform looked like it had just been pressed. There was absolutely no trace of fear in her eyes.

"Leave it to me," she said.

He didn't look at Mitsuru as they filed out.

By the time Ikutsuki showed up at the dorm, Akihiko had already paced every hallway. He knew he had time. The juniors had to travel to the location on foot and they'd no doubt take some time to brief once they got there, so this time before the battle was his own.

After his third trip up the stairs his anger had mostly subsided, leaving cramps in his calves and a tight, shivering sensation in his gut. He knew they wouldn't pick up any communications during the fight itself back at the dorm, as Mitsuru's transmitter couldn't pick up Penthesilea's mental commands, but Mitsuru had made it clear she expected him to be manning the console to monitor the situation from afar.

He set himself down in the chair, placed a hand on the controls, and waited. Ikutsuki was out of breath and sweating behind him, monitoring the spikes and drops in energy on the screen and occasionally offering inane commentary. Akihiko didn't have it in himself to respond. His breathing was even but his heart wouldn't obey orders. It was in his throat and in his gut and in his fingertips and _this was ridiculous_ , he'd seen a hundred battles before and this was no different. Except it was different. This was waiting on the edge of his seat after he'd asked a girl a grade younger than him to kill one of the things that had beaten him senseless and come back for more.

By the time Mitsuru's scratchy voice came over the comm, telling them that the mission had been a success, the vigil had taken its toll and his body was reeling with fatigue. Ikutsuki mentioned something about getting a drink, mentioned that he'd… biked there? Why had… so Akihiko stood up, and suddenly Ikutsuki's hand was gripping his bad shoulder, preventing him from falling. The spike of pain helping to bring him up out of his stupor. "Are you all right?" Ikutsuki said, looking alarmed.

"Yeah." He was so exhausted he almost laughed at his own clumsiness. He knew if he started it'd be hard to stop, so he didn't. "Sorry."

"Perhaps you should go to bed," Ikutsuki said. "I'll get the drink myself."

"No, no, stay up here. I'll get it. Mitsuru might need you. I'm fine."

"If you're sure," Ikutsuki said doubtfully, but released him.

Akihiko went downstairs and veered into the kitchen. None of them had had a very good dinner that evening due to the anxiety hanging over the dorm, so his stomach was awake and protesting. He was about to grab one of his power drinks from the refrigerator for Ikutsuki when he remembered that they had vending machines upstairs. Which would Ikutsuki like more?

Whatever. He had plenty of power drinks. He pulled one out, then leaned his arm on the top of the door so he could peruse his food supply.

He ended up zoning, letting the air out, letting the light bathe his face.

Wait, _light_. He instinctively looked at the kitchen clock, but the evidence was already shining into his eyes. The Dark Hour was officially over. The battle had truly been won. The juniors were coming back victorious. They'd done it without his help, which was good. They'd really—

Sudden nausea hit the pit of his stomach. Akihiko closed his eyes, resting his forehead against his forearm as the cold air continued to seep out, riding it out.

When he'd collected himself, he shut the door and went up with the drink. He didn't bother getting his snack.

* * *

.

Mitsuru didn't debrief him until the next night. All of the juniors had dropped like flies during the early evening, leaving the common room empty, the television a muted procession of colors. When Mitsuru had switched it off she told him to meet her upstairs, it was a request more than a command, and he accepted the invitation without comment.

It was a little awkward, but the fact was he couldn't stay angry at Mitsuru. They were perpetually in each other's orbit and trying to avoid the other was like trying to avoid breathing. They didn't exchange apologies, but she made his favorite tea and he complimented the new drapes on her windows, and that was that. Nothing else needed.

As it turned out, Junpei had gone back to showboating with a vengeance, putting the entire operation in danger when he'd bolted ahead to take on an enemy on his own. Akihiko had been about to leap up and go to his room right now, never mind the hour, but Mitsuru motioned for him to wait. She said that while she suspected he'd learned his lesson, whether he'd admit it or not, further infractions after this point would be punished severely. Akihiko had no doubt she meant it.

Yukari had performed admirably, keeping a cool head under pressure. Arisato was the shining star. She'd delivered the finishing blow and had kept her wits about her long enough to figure out which lever stopped the train, saving the mission and two train-loads full of people. She'd also gotten the worst of the damage, but Yukari had managed to stop all the bleeding before the Dark Hour ended, leaving only some fading bruises. They'd gone in hot, but they'd delivered.

He slept poorly. The next day he went to practice and road the bike so hard he was soaked through. Ryouta hadn't written the charts up yet, but he could see just by watching how effective the new training regime was. Ryouta was a good leader – stern when they were lazy and sympathetic when they hurt. He could see the trust in their eyes.

He went home and ate a snack, listening to the juniors chatter at the bar, but the food went down like lead. He finished his homework as quickly as possible, then stripped down to his boxers and crawled under the covers while it was still light out.

He woke several hours later to darkness, feeling like his chest was on fire.

At first he thought his sheets had somehow wrapped around his neck. After a moment he realized he was on his back and there weren't any sheets around him, and rather than relieve the pressure the realization only seemed to double it.

 _thou art I and I art_

Akihiko rolled to his side. The pressure magnified on his chest, in his injured shoulder, over to his injured ribcage and _he couldn't see, he couldn't breathe._

He fumbled, nearly knocking the lamp right off his bed stand before clicking it on. The room flooded with light. He propped himself on his elbow and gasped, drawing great lungfuls of air, in and out, tide against rocks and sand and continents weighing down on his shoulders, silt and sand and valleys and mountains.

 _thou art I and_

The tide crested in him. _Stop it._ He pressed his forehead to the mattress and repeated _stop it, stop it,_ and without warning the images were gone just as suddenly as they'd assaulted him, the pressure disappearing from his throat.

Akihiko gripped the edge of his bed stand so tightly he lost feeling in his fingers. He drew in gasp after gasp, letting the shadows in the room retreat and the temperature rise again. He could hear Junpei snoring somewhere down the hall, and the normalcy of the obnoxious sound grounded him further.

When he'd regained his equilibrium, he got out of bed. He dressed quickly, fumbling through his dresser. His jogging pants were on bottom of the bureau, a workout shirt on top. He grabbed his socks from the previous day, shoved them on – _penknife, watch –_ and then he was out the door, not bothering to leave a note.

Once outside, he started running and didn't stop. The air was cool but the humidity was high, and within minutes he was sweating. By the time he'd gone nine blocks he was soaked.

He was out of shape and his ribs were simmering in protest with every footfall. _Breathe._ He turned the corner and increased his pace. This far from the dorms, the area was dark, largely devoid of traffic this time of night. The moon was an unblinking eye over the hazy sphere of city lights.

As he ran the mist became heavier, the air redolent of salt; when he took another right turn down an alley, sending a startled cat scurrying behind the dumpster as he passed, the ocean suddenly unfolded in front of him in ripples of shadow and refracted light.

This close to the main bridge there was no beach – only a blunt drop off concrete partitions. Resisting the urge to take a page out of Junpei's book and simply jump over the side, he changed course and ran along them instead, letting the boundary guide him through the shadows. After a kilometer or two his footfalls began sounding different to his ears: gravel and hard-packed dirt and a brief stretch of well-maintained, if slippery, docks, and then everything around him finally gave way to sand as he broke out into the tourist section of the beach.

He slowed his pace here at last, allowing his burning lungs a minute or two to recapture some oxygen. The sand seemed to pull him down, adding a sense of finality to each step. Akihiko shuddered in several deep, cleansing breaths, eyes closed, face turned towards the glare of the moon, trying to orient himself in his flight.

When he'd gotten his breath back, he took off again. The sand trickled into his shoes and added to the weight, but he ran as hard as he was able, not caring how far he went or how fast, until his stomach turned and his ribs shrieked, and he couldn't tell if the roar was from the tide or in his ears.

He didn't make it home until the sun started to come up. Mitsuru was on the opposite end of the common room, first up as always, in the process of grinding up the beans for her morning pot of coffee. At the sound of the door opening she half-turned to regard him. Drenched, shaking with exhaustion, Akihiko closed the door and stood on the welcome mat, hair dripping sweat into his eyes.

Both of Mitsuru's eyebrows lifted. It was as much surprise he'd seen her show since Arisato had blown two personas out of her skull. "Hi," he grunted, and toed off his shoes. They left a puddle of sand.

Mitsuru regarded him long minute longer, eyebrows still raised. Then she breathed a short sigh through her nose and turned pointedly back to her coffee. "Don't be late for school."

He took a shower. By the time he got out the juniors were up, grumpy and sniping with each other as they clanged around the kitchen. None of them mentioned the previous night's outing to him, so Akihiko assumed Mitsuru wasn't in a hurry to set a bad example for them regarding their curfew.

Akihiko's stomach felt better as a whole, but his chest still held the echo of tension. He skipped breakfast just to be safe, and even though he was hungry by lunch, he ultimately decided to skip that too. He had enough reserves to make it through the day.

He expected to be ravenous by dinner, but to his surprise, his stomach felt fine. The pressure in his chest had eased entirely, and he had plenty of energy to get through his homework.

 _Huh_ , he thought. He rested on top of his covers as evening closed out, staring at the ceiling, feeling his breath flow easily in and out of his lungs. He was both tired and electrified, an odd sense of clarity coloring his thought process. The panic attack that'd happened the night before now seemed melodramatic. He felt in-tune, honed like a knife's edge.

Someone knocked on his door. "Come in," he said absently.

The door opened, but nobody spoke. When he finally looked over, Mitsuru was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching him.

She said, after a few minutes had passed in silence, "What are you doing, Akihiko?"

It was a pretty non-specific question for her, but he knew better than to pretend he didn't know what she meant. "It was just a morning run. I'm fine, I just had a lot on my mind."

"You haven't been cleared for that level of activity yet."

"I will be soon. Trust me. It's fine."

Mitsuru breathed out very, very slowly. He wondered if she'd pursue it. She had a zero-tolerance policy for downplaying injuries, believing martyrdom to be childish, but she also had her hands full. "Very well," she said at last, voice clipped. "But be reminded that regardless of what Edogawa-sensei says, it is ultimately up to the Kirijo corporation's discretion whether or not you fight. Is that clear?"

The commanding tone rankled him, but agreeing was the fastest way to stop talking about it. He nodded. Without another word, she turned on a brisk heel and left. After her footsteps faded, the room returned to its previous silence.

The voice inside him that was Polydeuces said, stirring for the first time in weeks, _the world is heavy, isn't it?_

Akihiko got up and changed for his evening practice. His feet barely seemed to make contact with the floor.

 _The oceans are too wide to ford alone._

"Not half as wide as your mouth," he said, and settled into stance in front of the bag, and started punching. It hurt a little but mostly felt good as sin.

* * *

.

Arisato apologized to him the next morning as she ate her toast. "You didn't do anything," Akihiko said, kind of surprised she was talking to him about it. The battle was in the past and there were new things to focus on.

"I know it made you nervous," she said. There were still faint bruises on her face – one on her temple, one under her eye. It bothered him how much that bothered him. Maybe because she was half-smiling as always, and seeing her smile with those bruises made him really uncomfortable on some kind of fundamental level. "I'm sorry."

"Not everything's your fault, you know. You don't have to apologize all the time."

"I like apologizing," she said, surprising him again. "It gets things out in the open. If more people did it, there'd be a lot less wasted time."

"I put my trust in you and you came through." Her insistence was strange, but maybe this was just her being needy. She certainly was overdue. He met her gaze solidly to make sure he had her attention. "You did a good job. You kept your feet and you kept a cool head. I couldn't have done it better myself."

"If you'd been there I don't think we would have run into trouble in the first place."

"Yeah, well." He didn't want to get into that because honestly, the whole Junpei thing was still pissing him off. If that'd happened and he'd been there, that night would have ended with two Junpei pieces on either ends of the track. "That won't happen again if he knows what's good for him."

"Well, anyway," Arisato said. "Just wanted to let you know. I'm off."

"Okay. Have a good one."

She paused at the door, still chewing on the last slice of toast. "Are you going to school?"

"Huh?" He looked up from his book. "Yeah, in a minute, I'm just finishing this up."

"Aren't you going to eat?"

… that was a good question actually.

* * *

.

He thought at first it might be an ulcer, but the problem wasn't really pain. It was a tight, prickling, constricting sensation when he _thought_ about eating, which could probably be attributed to nerves but preferably was due to something less pathetic. Probably stress. Midterms were coming up and his mind needed to focus, so his body was receiving the brunt of the strain.

The anxiety kept coming back at odd moments, making it difficult to predict his own appetite. He compensated by keeping himself fed on liquids. It was easier on his stomach but the sheer amount it took to keep his energy up was pretty stupid, so he knew he'd have to reintroduce solid food sooner rather than later.

SEES momentarily suspended operations to give the juniors time to buckle down for a few last cramming sessions. Akihiko reviewed here and there, but the truth was, he didn't believe in last-minute studying. He either knew it or he didn't. You didn't start weight training the day before the meet. All it did was make it hard to get out of bed the next day.

The morning before exams were about to start, he introduced food back into his body cautiously. Miso soup, a small bowl of rice. He had melonpan at lunch and a can of juice before practice. All of it stayed down.

Then he forced down the _katusdon_ Arisato had made for dinner, and when he lay on his bed that evening the contents of his stomach roared like an angry sea. His head felt like it was full of static. When he closed his eyes to sleep, the mountains reared up on the edge of his dreams, obscuring the sun, howling through the mouths of the caves until his bones rang and he woke up sweating on the edge of dawn.

Okay, he thought. _Okay._

* * *

 _._

Arisato started probing him for battle formation advice, which ended up working out with his fast because listening to her wage battles over Mitsuru's com always made his stomach roll. He was a little weirded out that she'd come to him about it. Mitsuru would have made more sense. Girls usually sought out other girls, didn't they?

He'd lost about a kilogram by the time midterms rolled around. Oddly enough, he felt just as focused as if he'd been eating properly. Almost more so. He performed well, probably somewhere in the top five, which would satisfy Mitsuru. That night the juniors crashed into the kitchen and made an outrageous dinner to blow of some steam. He sat at the bar to watch them, sipping a sports drink that now seemed too sugary after days on a no-fuss diet. Now that the immediate danger was out of the way, he could focus on the things that were really sticking in his craw: Shinjiro's location, and what the hell was up with this fixation with Arisato.

It was… there was a word for it. She wasn't 'confident', not exactly. He knew there was a word to describe her, except vocabulary wasn't his strong suit. It was…

It was actually, he thought as he watched her bustle around the kitchen, like fighting was math, and barking orders was science, and she excelled in every other subject so why not this one. Someone had knocked, so _click,_ the lights had gone on.

Or maybe it was because Arisato was small, or because she was always smiling, or her eye color was so bizarre and everybody, everybody loved her – even Yukari, whose motor ran on jealousy. Maybe it was weird watching her say violent things with that smile and hear her tiny hands pry carapaces off beetles and see her laugh it off when she got blood on her uniform. Or maybe it was weird because she was weird. She was _weird_.

* * *

.

"This is weird," Yukari said.

"I'll be fine. Trust me."

"Yeah," she said. "… I'm sorry. I don't think I can do this without screaming."

"Why would you need to scream? You shoot shadows. Just imagine I'm a shadow."

Yukari's expression was eloquent. "The ancient masters did it," Akihiko said.

"No offense, senpai, but you're not an ancient master. You're kind of… not a master of anything."

"People do this all the time."

"Yeah, _stupid_ people," she said. "I'm sorry, but I'm a really good shot, senpai. If you don't catch it you're going to be really hurt. Is it really worth taking the risk?"

"It's just a test. I'll be fine. I just want to see if I can do it."

Yukari's finger was hooked in the bow string. The arrow was nocked but pointing at the floor. "What if you can't?"

"I can. I swear. Just shoot it."

Yukari said nothing. Her face looked like she was biting into something sour. She lifted the bow, hesitated, lowered it, and lifted it again.

He braced his stance a little wider. The Dark Hour was closing in on them and his stomach was empty and he was light as air and he was _alive_ , he was as fast as the lightning he shot from his head. "I'm really going to shoot," Yukari said. "Are you totally sure? I mean, one hundred percent, no doubts sure?"

"Yeah. I'm ready. Go ahead."

Yukari slowly drew back the arrow. Despite her palpable reluctance, her hands were rock steady, her eyes unblinking. Akihiko grinned tightly, settling into his stance, flexing his hands in preparation.

Something latched onto his ear with the weight of a tow truck. Caught off-guard, Akihiko yelped, veering towards the pull to relieve the pressure. Mitsuru, dressed and ready for the night's excursion, stood on the other end of the vice grip, looking focused and dangerously unamused. "Just what do you think you are doing?" she asked Akihiko.

"Oh my gosh, thank you," Yukari said, hastily lowering the bow. "Just so you know this _totally_ wasn't my idea, senpai. He said he could catch it and I figured I knew what he was doing, but I didn't really think that—"

"Gather your things and meet the others downstairs, Takeba." Mitsuru's voice, while devoid of accusation, was cool. "We leave as soon as the Dark Hour begins."

Yukari shot Akihiko a quick glance before hurrying down the stairs. Akihiko and Mitsuru were left behind in the hallway. "I could've caught it," Akihiko said into the silence.

Mitsuru's tone was crisp and professional. "What is the word from the doctor?"

"It's the end of May."

"And?"

And he really wished she'd let go of his ear. "And I'm cleared."

"And so you celebrate this by asking an expert archer to shoot an arrow at your heart?"

"Well, yeah," he said, though it had maybe sounded less stupid when he'd thought it out in his head.

Mitsuru's sword was bright in hallway lights. Her fingers felt icy, not warming even a fraction even with prolonged contact with his skin. "I realize you are enthusiastic to return to the battlefield," she said, "but I want you to carefully consider before making that decision. No one will think less of you if you take more time. Perhaps you should take some more time to properly bring yourself up to speed."

What she wasn't saying was _you are and have always been a jackass, Akihiko,_ which he was thankful for, but he recoiled plenty at the other thing she'd said. "I'm a hundred percent. I promise."

Mitsuru said nothing for a long, excruciating minute.

"Seriously," he said.

"Very well," she said, and abruptly let go of his ear. He automatically lifted a hand to rub it as Mitsuru turned on her heel, descending the stairs to the lobby.

"Very well," Akihiko echoed into the empty hallway, and returned to his room to retrieve his gloves.

That night, when he summoned Polydeuces and the lightning sprang from his heart for the first time in a month, Arisato's incredulous grin was as wild as the storm. When she pointed at the shadow and said, "Get it," he knew what she was really saying was _fly._


	4. Bufuagigaru

**Chapter 4 - Bufuagigaru**

* * *

.

"This is what I have this week."

"You've been stocking up," Akihiko observed, appreciatively eyeing what appeared to be harpoons attached to a pair of boxing gloves. "Where do you get this stuff, anyway?"

Officer Kurosawa looked at him from under the brim of his hat. "Cousin."

"Oh. Is he from around here?"

"Lives in Yasoinaba."

"Huh." Akihiko picked them up gingerly and imagined the blades going through a jotun's face. A second later he was reaching for his wallet. "I'll have to visit that place sometime. I hear they have a good inn."

* * *

.

Things got different. Not just the line-up, but the process as a whole. Back in the old days, shadow hunting had gone on mainly in the city and had been kind of hit or miss. Some nights there'd be three or four, other nights there'd be a few dozen, and the three of them had had to run as much as they'd fought due to their low numbers. It'd been dangerous, sure, but there'd still been a thrilling undertone of rebellion in the whole thing. Out after curfew with weapons, being teenage vigilantes in a society that wanted them inside on school nights to do homework. Not that they _didn't,_ it was just… squashing bad guys had come first.

There was some minor disorientation at the start where Akihiko would forget himself in the heat of battle and bark out an order to Junpei, only to have Junpei stare at him and then look to Arisato for clearance. But for the most part, Arisato's authority was easy to submit to. Within a few days Akihiko knew his new place on the team, and to his surprise he realized he was more or less fine with it. Field command meant having someone else's blood on his hands, and while that was fine when his teammates were his own age, he knew that asking his juniors to follow through on attacks that could hurt them was beyond his ability to deal. Better to be used as a battering ram than have to suffer through the stress of a bad call.

But still, it _was_ different, right down to the way the team measured progress. It wasn't as much about sweeping streets clear anymore as it was delving straight into Tartarus and seeing how many flights they could climb before they got their asses handed to them. He hated Thebel, with its eerie perversion of the school hallways and the blood that he kept seeming to step in even when he was sure he'd avoided it. Arqa in contrast was a twisted, Gothic museum of stone statues and expressionless faces, with curved metal bars that braced the place like spines. And it all kept going. And _going._

Now that Akihiko had a way to release some stress his stomach stopped being so touchy, but he decided not to go back to his normal diet just yet. Eating less had given him a sense of clarity and direction that he liked.

He was a creature that thrived on exact science, so he dragged out a notebook from his previous school year, tore out the used pages, and wrote at the top of a new page, 'Number Goal'. Current weight, 66 kilograms. Target weight: 63. Caloric allowance: 1600.

He let the number sit in his head for a while during the next round in Tartarus, feeling out whether or not it'd be feasible, and decided to give it a shot. Now that he was back at practice, he knew the other guys were starting to size him up again, wondering what he'd be like in the ring. There'd been some tension, some subtle power plays between him and Ryouta, and he knew that he had to lay down who was captain before things got any weirder.

He dragged the rest of his sports drinks out of the fridge, carried them up to Junpei's room, and tossed them inside without waiting for Junpei to return home. Junpei didn't say anything to him that night, but the empty bottles started appearing in the recycling bin, so Akihiko figured his purchases hadn't totally gone to waste.

* * *

.

By the time they rescued Fuuka Yamagishi and Mitsuru rejoined the exploration team, he was beginning to notice something about how Arisato would direct him in battle. During the normal grind she more or less let them do their own thing, but during hard fights she tended to slow down and micromanage, which had saved them all from injury more than once. She had a sense of what worked and what wouldn't. Now that Fuuka was here with her near-infallible sense of the enemy weaknesses, that accuracy had only gotten better.

No, it was more how she would direct Akihiko in comparison to the others, which… he wouldn't describe it as _careless_ exactly, but it lacked the soft-handling she showed with the others. An enemy would be packing Bufu, so Akihiko would resign himself to an order to block, because Arisato was always on Junpei and Yukari for blocking their weaknesses. Instead she'd tell him to hit the damn thing as hard as he could, and… well. He could do that. He could definitely do that.

So he'd hit it and of course it'd skewer him with a Bufu, and the next thing he knew the shadow was gone and Arisato was hauling him off the floor. _Good work,_ she'd say. Not 'sorry for putting you in the line of fire' or 'my bad, I should've made a different call'. Just 'good work'.

At first he thought she might not be aware of his limitations, but that probably wasn't it. If anything she could be over-attentive. Leveling Diaramas at him when Yukari was occupied, boosting him with buffs when he could have finished the battle bare. At the same time she could be completely ruthless, telling him to tough it out when he hit the floor hard, to hit harder when his fist felt like it was made of shrapnel, to keep going when he dredged up the nerve to tell her he was tired.

In a way it kind of sucked but in a way it was kind of electric. Battling on the edge, hitting on the fly. There was just something about the way she'd wink at him when Junpei whined about being tired that gave him a weird jolt in his chest, like a wayward Zio.

He finally figured out why it made him feel this way right around the time they took out the first Arqa boss. Arisato was counting on him. This mattered and this didn't matter. Mitsuru did too. So had Miki, incidentally.

* * *

.

"Okay, so all I'm saying is, we should look into quad-attacks," Junpei said. "Like in an RPG, you know? Like when you have a bunch of different people with different elements, and then you put them all in the same party, and _wham._ All the elements come together and it makes a new attack. Like the Chrono games."

"Junpei, I was really hoping to get through today without getting any stupid on me," Yukari said. Her elbow was on the table, her chin propped on her fist as she sleepily leafed through a magazine. The air in the lobby was almost stiflingly warm, redolent of the scent of cooking rice and steaming vegetables; on the counter in front of them, Arisato hummed a tune to herself as she chopped up ingredients on a cutting board with disconcerting negligence. "Can't you go and have your little geek-out session in a manga café or something?"

"I'm serious." Junpei swung his legs carelessly, knocking his chair back enough so he could plop his feet on the table. Yukari spared them an eloquent look of disgust. "We've gotta start thinking like superheroes. We've got the powers. We've got the weapons. Who says we can't combine them? I mean, Hamuko does it with her personas all the time."

"Yeah, but Hamuko has a little something called _competence,_ " Yukari said. "Seriously, Junpei, what do you expect to happen? That we put our weapons together and… what, bufuagigaru comes out?"

"No, Yuka-tan," Junpei said with exaggerated patience. "What I _expect_ to happen is that we'd work together to make a bigger, better, _more awesome attack_. Okay, picture this."

He pushed his feet off and let his front chair legs thunk back onto the floor. He stood, bracing a foot on the seat, and spread his hands in front of him as if he were a film director mapping out a set. "Three Furious Gigas have just stepped up to the plate," he announced. "The party's health is low. We've covered ten floors and you guys are dragging ass. Not me, of course, 'cuz I'm the ace of the team. Anyway, we come across the Gigas. Your bow string's about to snap. Mitsuru-senpai's sword is dented. Akihiko-senpai goes 'I can take it' but then one of the Gigas go all 'I don't think so' and knocks him back with one solid punch. Wham!"

He slammed his foot down to punctuate, his voice jumping an octave. "'Someone help Akihiko-senpai!' – that's you, Fuuka-chan— so I do, but all my usual super-devastating attacks bounce off. Clang! And Mitsuru-senpai says, 'On your feet, Akihiko', and then she shakes out her hair and says, 'We shall have to think of another point of attack, as this is ineffective and stuff'."

Akihiko thought he heard a snort from the sofa area, but when he glanced over, Mitsuru appeared to be fully engrossed in her book. "So I go, we should do a quad-attack!" Junpei positioned his hands like a magical girl. "And Hamuko goes, 'You're totally right, Junpei'. So we all—"

"Okay, hold on, wait a minute," Arisato said, not looking up. She sounded like she was chewing. "Let's think about this logically for a minute. It wouldn't work if you've got two opposing elements in there. It's not like the Chrono games where they could control it enough to shoot it. It'd probably just happen in one big explosion that'd take us all out."

"Okay, chill out _,_ bro, I'm getting to that," Junpei said. "So like, the Gigas is closing in, right? And Hamuko says, 'Oooh, you're so handsome and full of good ideas, Junpei, I'll follow your lead'." Junpei now leapt up onto the seat of the chair and slammed a foot down atop the table. "'Agi-cannon!' I raise my sword and a giant ball of fire appears over the enemy's head. And Akihiko-senpai does like, this meteor dive, and leaps up in the air punches his lightning down into the fire ball. And then Mitsuru raises her hand like she's shooting an energy beam and goes 'Bufu-blast!' and the whole thing just swells up like this great big ball of Gigas death. And then Yuka-tan—"

"Ugh, leave me out of this," Yukari groaned.

"Yuka-tan nocks her last arrow and goes, 'I fire this in the name of love!' and lets it go. Pew! It shoots straight into the cloud and puts the wind in, and it busts apart and rains down onto the enemy. KERPOW!" Junpei wrenched his arms out as far as they would go with such enthusiasm that the chair rocked sharply beneath him. "Instant death! SEES triumphs again! The crowd goes wild! HAAHHHH! HAHHHHHH!"

"Junpei, I can't even go into how stupid that all was," Yukari said. "Like I would need an actual textbook to explain all the ways to you."

"You know what your problem is, Yuka-tan? You've lost your sense of childlike wonder," Junpei said. "It's an awesome idea and you know it. Hamuko thinks so too. Don'tcha, Leader?"

Without turning, mouth still full, Arisato gave a thumbs-up over her head.

"Oh my god, you two are such idiots," Yukari said. "Fuuka-chan, help me out here."

"Um, well, theoretically I suppose it could be possible," Fuuka said hesitantly. She was hovering on the very fringes of the kitchen, watching Arisato's display with wide, transfixed eyes. "But like Hamuko-san said, it would be hard to ensure the accuracy of such a large attack. And so far we haven't discovered a way to delay elemental attacks, so stacking them together in one space would be…"

Akihiko was spacing out a little. Mostly because he was trying to fix the ripped seam in his right glove, but also because Arisato's hips were swaying a little as she hummed. He wondered if she knew she was doing it.

"Senpai?"

He jerked his attention over. Junpei was looking at him expectantly. "Sorry, what?" Akihiko said.

"I _said_ , what do you think? I mean, you've been in this game almost as long as Mitsuru-senpai. You think it could work, right?"

"Uh," he said. Arisato flipped a raw piece of broccoli up into the air, caught it in her mouth, and went back to chopping. "I'd kind of rather not play with fire, if it's all the same to you."

"Man, no one here has vision," Junpei groused. "Just wait. You make fun of me now, but one day my plan's gonna save our bacon and you all are gonna lay flowers at my feet and beg me to forgive you."

Over in her place on the sofa, Mitsuru coughed delicately. Arisato continued to hum, breaking off with a curse when she accidentally dropped the knife on her foot.

* * *

.

"It's just lunch, I swear."

"It's never just lunch with you."

"This time it's lunch."

"It's a fucking guilt trip with soy sauce," Shinjiro snapped, but he was eating said guilt trip and looking like he was pretty okay with it. He was as skinny as a middle finger, exhausted but alert as he polished off his spring roll with record speed. "I told you not to look for me."

"Look, you can't just disappear. You could've been hurt or dead for all we knew."

"So you spend a week tracking me down and bust into the alley like some nagging housewife? I would've knifed you myself if six other shitheads hadn't tried it first."

"I could've handled it myself. You're the one who made a big deal out of it."

"Six shitheads _is_ a big deal, asshole!"

"Maybe to you." The diner was an ocean of steam and chatter. Shinjiro hadn't stopped stuffing his face for the last several minutes. When Akihiko ordered him a refill, he'd resumed eating the instant the bowl hit the table. "Real men are used to heavy lifting."

Attention still down, mouth half-full, Shinjiro sneered, "Tough talk from a guy who got his ribcage smashed in not too long ago."

"It wasn't _smashed in,_ it was—" Okay. Akihiko hid his face a moment, trying to get the conversation back on track. "Look, Mitsuru's been worried sick. You're our friend. It's not out of sight, out of mind. Of course we're going to look for you. You can't just meet me at the hospital and then completely drop off the map the next day. It's not fair."

Shinjiro's dark eyes finally flickered sideways over to him – a quick, shrewd sweep at odds with his bored slouch—before he returned to his bowl. The way he held his chopsticks was almost dainty, which made the ravenous way he was wolfing down the ramen even more jarring. "Ain't my fault you guys have a complex."

"Look, fuck you," Akihiko said. "I'm not asking for a huge favor here, just some common courtesy."

"I can take care of myself. You on the other hand—"

"You don't have to fight. You can just stay with us. We've got plenty of rooms, you don't need to be on the move all the time."

"Don't need charity."

"It's not _charity!_ " Once again, Akihiko closed his eyes in a last-ditch effort not to kick Shinjiro's ass. Shinjiro was smart as hell – had gotten better grades than Akihiko back in the days where he'd given a damn – but life lessons tended to go straight over his head. It didn't help that the smell of the place was making Akihiko a little queasy. It'd been ages since he'd been inside a restaurant like this, but he'd thought a neutral place would be more likely to draw Shinjiro out of the shadows. "You're _really_ saying you wouldn't do the same for me?"

Shinjiro didn't look at him, but the answer was in his silence. Any moment he'd polish off his food, and who knew how Akihiko was going to keep him there after that. Akihiko's own meal was untouched so far, but he couldn't count on Shinjiro's sense of propriety to hold him there until Akihiko had finished. "Things are different," Akihiko said. "Arisato… there's something about her. I don't know how, but she can summon different personas. As easy as changing hats. Zio, Garu, even Dia… there's nothing she can't pull out of her head."

Shinjiro didn't stop shoveling food in, but Akihiko knew him well enough to know that he'd gotten his attention. Sure enough, after the next swallow Shinjiro said, "She still fronting the team? Or have you taken over again?"

"No, she's the lead. We can't afford to take her out."

Shinjiro didn't respond. Apparently that was as far as his interest went. In two more mouthfuls he finished off his noodles, setting the chopsticks down across the bowl without bothering to drain the broth.

Akihiko shoved his own bowl over in front of him.

Shinjiro did look at him then. He'd gotten some color back, most likely from heat and good food, but there were still sharp angles from stress and malnutrition carved into his face. Akihiko waited as Shinjiro's eyes once again swept over him, more thoroughly than before, narrowing by the time they got back up to his face. "Come back," Akihiko said, lowering his voice. Coaxing rather than bullying. "What's the worst that can happen."

"Preachy lectures about how I should give a damn," Shinjiro said. "You don't need me, Aki. You just think you do."

"It's not about need." But he had to swallow down a sudden barb in his throat. He didn't dare get soppy because Shinjiro would walk out. Shinjiro hated seeing him cry only slightly less than he hated pickled vegetables, and the latter made him violently projectile barf. "I just want you to be safe. So does Mitsuru."

"I'm safe enough."

" _You're on the streets_."

Shinjiro gave a huff of a laugh. "Ain't no one who can take me out there."

"You don't know that for sure."

"Look, whether I fight for you or fight on the streets, the life's still the same. Only difference is, on my own, _I_ get to choose the fight."

"For god's sake, I already said you didn't have to fight," Akihiko said, getting exasperated. "Will you just listen to me for two seconds?"

"Thanks for the grub." Shinjiro was standing, rising from the stool with a grunt as his back cricked. "I'll catch you back for it later."

"Shinji, don't make me punch you in the face."

Shinjiro walked towards the door.

" _Hey_ ," Akihiko said.

"Don't look for me again," Shinjiro said. He didn't break stride, hands shoved deep in his pockets, putting in distance. "Eat your vegetables."

The door swung open, letting daylight veer into the interior of the diner, then closed with a gentle jingle of bells.

Akihiko sat on the stool five minutes after Shinjiro disappeared out the door, waiting for his churning stomach to settle down.

When it had calmed, he threw money on the bar and left. He didn't eat his vegetables.

* * *

.

"Hey." Ryouta rapped lightly on a locker at the end of the row. "You mind if we talk a second?"

"Sure." Akihiko had been toweling off his hair. His body was buzzing pleasantly in the way it always did after a hard workout. He finished pulling up his pants, then draped his towel over his neck so he could root around in his bag for his spare socks.

Ryouta shifted his weight. He'd already showered and changed: jacket on, workout bag slung over his shoulder. "What's up?" Akihiko said after a minute wondering why Ryouta was suddenly being so demure. He wondered if one of the guys had broken something.

"Listen," Ryouta said. "About practice today."

"What about it?"

Ryouta hesitated again. Akihiko blinked up at him as he unrolled the socks, wrestling them up over his still-damp feet. "Listen, I get that you're pumped to be back and everything," Ryouta said. "And the guys are happy to have you back. Me too. It's just, that workout we made up while you were gone… the cardio station thing? It was meant to be done every other time. Not… like you've been doing it, every day."

"What, they're complaining already? I figured you guys would be all over that."

"Except I already told you, it's pretty grueling," Ryouta said. "It was fun when we paced ourselves. But it's tough to come in to practice and know you're going to get broken up every single time."

"Look, it's you guys who came up with this miracle," Akihiko said. "I'm just following your guys' charts."

"That was for the beginning of the season. Now that we're starting to have meets, it's time to back off a little."

"Is that advice from the co-captain or the team?" Akihiko didn't know why he was trying to pick a fight. Ryouta clearly wasn't looking forward to the confrontation either, because he was shifting his weight again with a clear aura of resignation. "You guys were all fine doing this when I was gone. You didn't even ask me about it. Suddenly _I_ ask them to do it, and it's this big hang-up?"

"Look, I'm not trying to step on your toes," Ryouta said. "But the team's worn out. You pushed the stations up to five minutes each and they're hard workouts, and they have to do them every time. They're going to get injured."

"Then they should've trained harder in the off-season."

Ryouta didn't respond for a long minute. Akihiko pulled his shirt on over his head, feeling it stick to moisture still on his skin.

When Ryouta spoke again, his voice was low and tired. "Come on, man. This isn't like you."

The buzz from the workout slowly faded, leaving a hollow feeling behind his eyes. Akihiko squashed it down, jerking his vest down over his shirt. "Look," Ryouta said. "I didn't want to bring this up, but… some of the guys are starting to talk."

Akihiko felt his heart skip. He kept a neutral face, tying the uniform ribbon under his collar. "They're tired, they don't really mean it," Ryouta said. He looked extremely uncomfortable. "But I figured you should know."

"Know what."

Ryouta rolled his shoulder restlessly, not quite meeting his eyes. "It's kind of going around that you've become… sort of a tyrant ever since you came back. They're saying maybe if you hadn't, everyone would still be having fun at practice."

Akihiko's fingers slipped through the knot. He let his hands hang by his throat a moment, blinking at Ryouta. "Look, they're just wiped out," Ryouta repeated. "They really are glad you're back. But I just figured it wouldn't be right to keep it from you."

"Everyone's saying that?" Akihiko asked.

Ryouta shrugged a shoulder once, slowly. He still wouldn't meet Akihiko's gaze.

"Okay," Akihiko said after a minute. "Thanks."

"Hey, no problem, man."

"See you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Take it easy, okay?"

"Okay."

Ryouta left. Akihiko finished tying the knot then sat down on the bench and waited for his stomach to do the opposite.

* * *

.

That night he woke up hovering somewhere between the sea and the storm, head a roiling mass of clouds. He flailed for the lamp by his bed and overbalanced, thudding to the floor in a tangle of sheets. Lights flashed around him where there weren't lights, and without warning his stomach heaved.

He barely made it over to the waste bin before he vomited. The remnants of his dinner came up, and bile after that, and dry heaves after that, until the ocean bled away and he was left with the rushing of his own blood in his ears.

 _Shit,_ he thought, barking for breath, shaking fingers curled around the sides of the bin. _Shit shit shit._ His chest was tight and pain was lancing through his abdomen.

He fought to his feet blindly, supporting himself on his night stand, and unsteadily stooped to pick up the waste bin. It sloshed revoltingly and his gorge rose again. Bracing himself against the wall, he took several open-mouthed breaths, forcing it down until his stomach settled.

When he was steady, he pushed himself off and made for the door.

He trekked up to the bathrooms on the fourth floor just in case. The lights in the bathroom as always were strangely green, emphasizing the hollows under his eyes and highlighting the shadows under his cheekbones. He cupped his hands under the faucet, taking some careful sips, then splashed water over his face and ran some through his hair. He then spent several minutes washing out the waste bin with warm water and hand soap, swishing the sudsy mixture around, and spent several more minutes making sure all traces of the vomit were completely gone from the sink.

He shut off the light and retraced his steps. He replaced the bin in his room, then changed into his running clothes and fumbled his way down the stairs in the dark. The instant his feet hit the stoop outside, he was running like he'd never stop, letting streetlights and shadows blur into incomprehensibility around him.

At first he kept loose track of the time, figuring he'd turn around in an hour. By the time he hit the checkpoint, his stomach was steadier and his head was starting to clear in a familiar, alluring way, so he went on for another four kilometers, then six, then eight, and life was once again organized into a catalogue of sensations. His feet pounding the pavement. His breath in his chest. The sweat on his back. Rhythm and speed without room for anything else.

He didn't get back until the sun rose, by which time the clouds in his head had been replaced by a pleasant, clear-cut detachment. "Where on earth have you been?" Mitsuru demanded when he stumbled into the lobby. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Sorry," he panted. His stomach was calm and his thoughts were bright as Zios.

"You'll be late if you shower, but with that odor it can't be helped," Mitsuru said crisply. "Go. We'll discuss this later."

He rinsed off in record speed, not bothering to soap his hair. The juniors were gone by the time he dressed and made it downstairs with his book bag. A coldly impatient Mitsuru was hovering by the door. Knowing better than to offer excuses when she was in this kind of mood, Akihiko kept his mouth shut as he followed her out.

They were late for school. Busy bawling out the class delinquent, his homeroom teacher barely gave him a sideways glance when he came in. He took his seat quietly, realized he'd forgotten to bring a pencil, and asked the girl next to him if he could borrow one. She gave him a wide-eyed stare, face reddening, before fumbling in her book bag, producing one with spangles and kitten prints.

By late afternoon the clouds were creeping in again. Akihiko was disappointed but not particularly surprised. He'd cut well into his sleep by running all night, and he knew better than anyone that he wasn't actually a machine. He'd work out and nap before dinner, and hopefully the numbers would balance themselves out in time by the Dark Hour.

Before Mitsuru could return to the dorm that evening, Akihiko was out again, shoes pounding the pavement, driving doubt out of his head until every thought had the clarity of Zios. He slept afterwards, a solid hour, and when he awoke he felt more unburdened than he had in a while. Shinjiro was safely in one compartment, Miki was in another. His stomach was empty and he was weightless enough to fly.

He got the sense he was still in trouble when he came downstairs for the Dark Hour. A part of him minded this and a bigger part of him didn't. He was focused and he was ready and his evoker felt like truth itself in his hand, and when Arisato looked at him through the sickly green light of Tartarus' lobby and raised an expectant eyebrow, he didn't hesitate.


	5. An Equivalent Exchange of Skin

**Chapter 5 - An Equivalent Exchange of Skin**

* * *

 _Some beach dialogue taken from the P3P version of the game. Warnings again for triggering content and eating disorders._

* * *

.

July's full moon introduced itself by having him waking up in a shadow-infested love hotel on top of Mitsuru. Akihiko felt philosophical as Mitsuru's right hook took him straight off the bed and headfirst into the bedside table, figuring as long as he learned something from this the entire experience wasn't a total waste. "I'm sorry," Mitsuru said. "I reacted without thinking."

"No problem." His eye was swelling shut. She'd propped him against a wall and was currently crouching in front of him in only a towel, which could either be construed as heaven or a special, personalized kind of hell. "Have you thought about trying out for the boxing team?"

"I suspect my hand hurts more than your face," she said dryly. She took his chin and maneuvered him very gently to inspect the damage done by the table. "Thank goodness you're not concussed. "

"What I don't get is why this happened. I thought we beat the shadow."

"It must have been a decoy. Either that, or there are two at work."

"That'd make sense. This whole thing with pairs, right?"

"With any luck Takeba is with Arisato in another part of the hotel. If we were able to break ourselves free, they should have broken free as well."

He knew instinctively that he and Mitsuru hadn't actually _done_ anything, but the fact that the shadow had started them out so close to it made his sweat cold. Then another thought occurred to him. "You think they were in the exact same situation?"

"I think," Mitsuru said, very dry again, "that wondering about it is farthest down on our list of priorities."

He could maybe argue that point, but there was a brief crackle before Fuuka's voice suddenly broke through overhead, tinged with panic. _"Mitsuru-senpai? Akihiko-senpai?"_

"We're here," Mitsuru called. Akihiko wondered at how she manage to be mostly naked and crisply professional at the same time. "Where are the others?"

" _I haven't contacted them yet, but I can sense them both in a room down the hall. Are you two all right? It seems like there's another shadow that was interfering with the connection. I lost track of all of you at once."_

"I apologize for worrying you. Both of us are fine. Go check up on Takeba and Arisato to make sure they've broken the shadow's influence. We'll be there shortly."

" _All right."_

There was a slight click like a radio being turned off, and they were alone again. "She sounded worried," Akihiko said. "This must've really scared her."

"She's a strong girl. She alone held out where the rest of us failed." Ignoring what probably should have been a rush, Mitsuru instead took the time to gather the side of his face in her cool palm, bracing him. "Close your eyes."

He obeyed. A flood of warmth muscled past the perpetual chill on Mitsuru's skin, soothing away the throbbing pain of impact. Within moments the tight pressure faded from his head and the swelling diminished, allowing him to cautiously open his eyes again. This time both responded. "You know, I'm strong too," Akihiko said, blinking a bit to adjust his vision. "You never compliment me."

"My apologies." Mitsuru brushed his hair from his brow and gave him a firm kiss on the forehead. "There. May that reward sustain you. Now go find your pants."

* * *

.

July marched on, and Akihiko started to see problems with his training regime. While the original 1600 calorie cap was sufficient for keeping his weight level, he'd plateaue'd around sixty-four kilograms – still one kilogram from his goal. He was still fast, but that sense of buoyancy the restrictive diet had given him in the beginning was gone. More often than not he felt hungry and irritable, which defeated the purpose.

He went back to his charts to see if he could figure out the problem. He'd managed to fill out a few pages in the beginning with notes on his progress, but he hadn't been able to update for over a week. He hadn't cheated, so there had to be something else he wasn't doing.

He came to the reluctant realization that he might not be able to tumble to the information he needed on his own. On the surface what he was doing was pretty self-explanatory – fewer calories plus more workouts equaled weight loss— but the fact was he was already being pretty strict. His metabolism was fast and his workouts were brutal, especially on the nights they went to Tartarus. 1600 was fair.

Still, it didn't feel right, and the whole point was to feel good about what he was doing. The next day he grabbed his stuff up after school, jogged down the stairs in front of the crowd, and made for the Iwatodai public library.

Because he got there so quickly, he managed to hit a time during the afternoon when it was relatively under-populated. Feeling stupid but knowing he didn't have time to waste worrying about it, he headed straight over to the dietary section before he could change his mind about the whole thing. The library was massive and the section ended up encompassing two entire bookcases, so it took him a while to find what he was looking for.

Face burning even though he was alone, Akihiko glanced neurotically over his shoulder a final time before selecting a book at random. The print was smaller than he expected, but he flipped through quickly, hoping something useful would jump out at him. A lot of the information he came across was stuff he already knew. How to calculate body mass index, how to incorporate height and gender and age to get a more accurate resting metabolic rate. There was some information on what the body did with different substances – sugars, carbohydrates, fat – but like the body mass index, this was information he'd already availed himself of.

He replaced it and took down another. This one dealt with clinical studies on the effectiveness of diets according to demographic. He flipped through and replaced it. The third one went into the science of food, including recipes that supposedly activated certain chemical responses in the body to lose weight.

… that was pretty interesting, actually. Akihiko tucked it under his arm and hoped he'd remembered to bring his library card. Junpei would make snide comments all over town if he caught sight of it, but that just meant Akihiko would have to be better about hiding his stuff.

He was replacing his fifth book – a collection of anonymous journal entries from women participating in clinical diets – when a colorful array of scientific journals caught his eye on the middle shelf. Taking another glance over his shoulder, Akihiko bent to select one at random. A single glance at the title – "Systematic reviews of prevalence rates for eating disorders in females aged 10 to 18" – told him that it was heavier fare than what he was looking for. The next book dealt with "cognitive-behavioral exposure-based image therapy", the next with nutritional rehabilitation and refeeding; Akihiko thumbed through a journal from two years ago that dealt with group schema therapy for eating disorders, scanning the personal accounts with a mix of dread and fascination usually reserved for train wrecks. In all of the case studies, there seemed to be a common theme of body dysmorphia – of women not being able to distinguish what was real and what wasn't in the mirror.

Kind of unsettled, Akihiko shelved it a little quicker than necessary, rationalizing that he wouldn't have been allowed to check out reference materials anyway. It was one thing to lose weight for the sake of being thin and another thing to do it out of a desire for self-improvement. If he went off-road with it sometimes –got a little dizzy or run-down – it was because he'd screwed up the math, not because he was trying to sabotage himself on purpose.

… and actually, come to think of it, there _had_ been one thing to jump out at him from all the material. Akihiko had been pretty good about eyeballing the calories he'd been putting in for the past several weeks, but overall he was pretty busy and it was a pain to double-check everything without a label.

 _Maybe that's my problem,_ Akihiko realized, staring down at the book with fresh perspective. He'd written down the numbers in his workouts because that'd made the most sense to him at the time to measure output. But without writing down what foods he consumed, that _input,_ his math had probably gotten skewed somewhere along the line. The body was made to adapt, so maybe it'd already gotten used to his stricter diet and longer workouts. Coach said you were always supposed to change it up, to trick it into giving a little more. He could buy a new notebook, draw up some columns, make some better science out of it, and maybe he'd…

He was yanked up out of his reverie when hushed female voices reached his ear. He hadn't realized anyone had been getting close. Judging by the smothered giggles and the discussion of vacation plans, they had to be schoolgirls. The afternoon crowd must be coming in.

Hastily hiding the book under his arm, he scooped up his bag and made for the front desk before they could come any closer. _Girls._ What was with them and vacations? They hadn't even had their exams yet.

… which reminded him.

* * *

.

" _Stop—doing—this—shit,_ " Shinjiro snarled, slamming him against the side of the building. "Can't you go two seconds without getting up in my grill? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Summer vacation's coming up," Akihiko said, running his wrist across his mouth and poking his teeth experimentally with his tongue. "Just wondering if you had plans yet."

" _Are you out of your mind_?"

"What? It was just two skinheads," Akihiko said. "If you think I can't handle that, you're the one who's losing it."

"You're gonna get yourself killed and then I'm going to have to listen to the princess bitch about it," Shinjiro snapped. " _Stay out of the alleys._ I ain't telling you again."

"We're in one right now."

Shinjiro closed his fist in his collar and dragged him out. Akihiko tolerated being shoved down on a sidewalk bench and ignored the glances from passersby in favor of getting back to business. "We don't have solid plans of our own yet, but I'm guessing that the juniors will probably do their own thing. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. Get out of the city."

"You came alley-crawling into the seediest part of town in your school uniform to _ask me out on a date_?"

"Look, you don't have to be an ass about it," Akihiko said, though it did sound kind of weird when Shinjiro put it like that. "We could hike or camp, maybe go fishing or something. Mitsuru knows some places out of town that we could get to for cheap."

Shinjiro began to speak and stopped. He stood up straight and spun away, cursing under his breath, reaching up under his hat to scrub his hair with his nails. He both looked and smelled like he needed about six showers. "Any campsite will've been booked a long time ago."

"Then we do something else. It doesn't matter to me."

"Look, I know what you're trying to do," Shinjiro said. "And I already gave you my answer. Now _stop following me_."

"I'm not."

"I ain't staying in that dorm again, Aki. I don't care what leverage you think you got on me."

"Fine. Let's go hiking."

Shinjiro threw himself down beside him on the bench and scrubbed his face for a while. Akihiko waited him out, still a little giddy from the brawl. It felt really good to punch things that didn't explode into goo or leave chunks of hair everywhere. "For fuck's sake, Aki, all you ever do is hike up that tower," Shinjiro muttered, muffled. "Take your own advice and use your time to get some sleep for once."

… and that, right there, was the reason why Akihiko could never stay pissed at him. Ninety percent of what came out of Shinjiro's mouth made Akihiko want to punch him in the face, but that other ten percent could always be counted on to come out of the clear blue to diffuse him. Shinjiro cared – probably more than anyone else Akihiko knew – and that's exactly why he kept his distance. "Mitsuru sent this with me," Akihiko said, passing a small black drawstring bag over. "She said to give it to you and not take no for an answer, or she's getting Kirijo Corp's private police force to apprehend you and put a tracker in you."

"The hell, that ain't legal."

"She doesn't care."

"S'that a _phone_?" Shinjiro had parted the strings to peer into the bag.

"She plugged a list of contacts in it for emergencies. She also said she managed to pull some strings and get you a gym membership. For the showers and stuff. The card's in the bag, you just need to show your ID."

"Fuck this," Shinjiro said, shoving it back. "You two to need to lay off. I ain't a case for you."

"She's serious about the tracking," Akihiko said. "I mean dead serious. She's got the men ready to go. It's a chip she can put into your neck, and it's powered by Penthesilea during the Dark Hour, so there wouldn't be any place you could hide. Just take the bag so she'll get off your case."

Shinjiro hesitated. Swearing softly in frustration, he jammed the bag into his coat pocket and slumped down on the bench, hands deep in his pockets as he glared out at the road. "Call me if you change your mind," Akihiko said, working himself upright with a grunt. The skinheads had managed a good hit or two, but he still felt pretty good. It was getting late and he had evening workouts to attend to. "Or if you just want to hang out. Any time of the day, night, I don't care. Give me a call."

Shinjiro just shook his head. He looked tired and cranky. "I'll see you soon," Akihiko said, maybe to rub it in. "Take care of yourself."

Shinjiro didn't answer, so Akihiko left. He took the alleys on the way back just in case, but to his disappointment he was left alone the rest of the way home.

* * *

.

"So what _did_ happen at the love hotel, eh, ladies?" Junpei grinned, sidling up next to Yukari on the way out of the dorm. The threat of the day's exams hung over them like smoke. "You never did tell anyone."

"We never told anyone because _nothing happened,_ Stupei," Yukari said between gritted teeth. Arisato merely threw back the last of her milk and tossed the container into the recycling bin by the door. "And get your mind out of the gutter. It's gross."

"C'mon. You _were_ in a house of love. Nothing to be ashamed of. What's a little fun between friends, eh? A little comfort on the eve of battle? Heheh."

"Ugh, you're making me sick." Yukari covered her ears. "Hamuko, _do something._ "

"Yukari woke up in the shower," Arisato said. She looked a little tired, but a pleasant smile as always brightened the shadows on her face. "I woke up on the bed."

"And?" Junpei eagerly pounced on the opening. "Did you go check it out? Did you… give some orders? Did things get steamy? C'mon, you can tell me."

"Things did get steamy," Arisato conceded. "Though it was probably because the water was hot, not because of anything that actually went down."

"And? _Did_ anything go down?"

"That depends on your definition."

Junpei crashed into a garbage can. Akihiko shook his head and drained his can of juice.

… the exams went great.

* * *

.

It was a good thing he hadn't committed to plans with Shinjiro, because it ended up that the entire dorm took a vacation to Yakushima. He made sure to call Shinjiro before they left but was forced to leave a voicemail message. Wherever Shinjiro was, Akihiko hoped he was playing it safe and hadn't tossed the phone into the trash yet.

It'd been a while since he'd been at the Kirijo vacation home, but it was just as gorgeous and stuffy and impersonal and cold as hell as he remembered. More than anything he hated what being there did to Mitsuru. The juniors were excited, chatting on about the maids and the furnishings and _look at the size of this place, we could fit the entire school in here_ , but Akihiko kept his eye on her. He knew her well enough to spot the rigidity in her back, the way she kept her arms close to her body, the way she held her chin just a little too high. She was dreading everything about this visit.

He had time to think _we really should've gone somewhere else_ before Mitsuru's father swept into the hall, and the last of the vulnerability was gone from Mitsuru's face.

The juniors instantly quieted, even Junpei. Akihiko didn't blame them. Takeharu Kirijo cut an intimidating figure. Mitsuru and her father exchanged greetings – at least, she greeted him and he acknowledged by momentarily pausing in his tracks – and then the confrontation was over just as soon as it begun, leaving Akihiko irritated and the juniors mostly just confused.

Mitsuru didn't let the unpleasantness sit. She summoned the maids and had the team ushered to their rooms to get ready for their first beach visit. "Don't wait for us," Mitsuru told Akihiko before he closed the door. "Girls take time to get ready. And remember sunscreen. You know what happened last time."

"Let it go, I was twelve," Akihiko said irritably. He heard her chuckle and slammed the door before she could see him flush.

He changed into his bathing suit quickly, throwing on a short-sleeved white shirt overtop so he wouldn't scandalize the maids on the way down. That done, he sat on the edge of the bed and took out the notebook he'd purchased before leaving the city.

Figuring he had some time to kill, he spared a few minutes to review the number categories. There were the daily weight checks, but he had to settle on a time so he could keep it consistent. There was a scale in the boxing room, so he could probably use that before school started. As long as he did it the same time every day and checked the calibration, it would be reasonably accurate.

All right. He made a category.

Next up was calories expended during the day. That'd be harder to track, but he'd researched some of the typical calorie expenditures when he'd had a moment to himself last week. He could approximate. Really, he wasn't so worried about that. He was in tune with himself enough to know if he was getting a good workout.

The real issue was the caloric intake. He drew a line down to mark the category and labeled it neatly to give himself time to think. As long as he recorded everything he took in, it'd be easy to check up later on the different values. Plus writing it down would encourage him to tone down consumption.

What else could he add? After some thought, Akihiko put down 'situps' because why not. It was something he did every day. The next column over was 'push-ups'. He had a little space left, so he put 'box. pract' on one and 'km ran' in the last category. He wrote today's date on top of the sheet, and finally felt satisfied he'd at least taken the first steps towards organizing himself.

Thumps down the hallway brought his attention up before a hard knock came on his door. "Senpai, what's takin' you so long?" Junpei called on the other side of the door. "Time's a wastin'! Let's get going before those beach babes decide to find themselves another beach!"

"Coming," he called, and slid the notebook away. No sense in tempting fate.

* * *

.

The sand was blisteringly hot and it occurred to him that he should've made a category for swimming. But the breeze felt good and the scent was incredible, and despite everything he felt himself relax a little. Maybe after training he'd spoil himself, chill out under an umbrella or something. As long as his teammates weren't around to see him do it. "Ahh… got my sandals on… givin' my feet a chance to breathe," Junpei said blissfully. He cranked his hat backwards and gave an exaggerated stretch towards the sun. "Yup! Summer's here!"

Wait a second. "Darn," Akihiko muttered, still scanning the sea. "There's nothing out there I can use as a marker. Too bad. I was hoping for a good swim." He could eyeball, but that'd be a pain. He'd have to measure duration rather than distance.

"You must be joking." There was an enormous inner tube tucked under Junpei's arm. Junpei spun to goggle at him, nearly smacking Akihiko in the stomach with it. "We come all the way to the beach and you're gonna _train?_ "

"What's wrong with that?" Akihiko tore his attention from the sea to blink back at him. "You got a better idea?"

"As a matter of fact—"

They were interrupted by footsteps coming towards them. Akihiko looked over Junpei's shoulder to see the girls, led by Yukari, starting to come down the dune towards them. "Yo, about time you got here," he said, keenly aware of Junpei's stunned expression beside him. _Great._ Any moment this would get awkward and Akihiko really didn't need any more of that today.

Yukari said nothing to his greeting, but her eyes were fixed firmly on his face and her face was red.

Had she gotten sunburned already? He knew girls had sensitive skin but that was kind of ridiculous. He'd offer her sunblock but he had a feeling she'd hit him, so he said, "Something wrong, Yukari?"

Yukari licked her bottom lip nervously before answering. "That's a pretty… small swimsuit."

 _Oh._ Was that all? "What, don't you know? Swimsuits like this reduce water resistance and—"

"Oh, that's okay." She cut him off hastily, her face flushing further. "It doesn't need to be justified." She then broke away, glancing at Junpei with mounting disdain. "What's the matter with you? You look even dumber than usual."

"Maaaan." Junpei had dissolved into a primal, salivating mass of testosterone. It was almost funny, except Akihiko really wanted to get this part over with so he could start working out. He wished he hadn't taken his shirt off so early. Yukari's eyes kept darting to him, and while she didn't look unimpressed, he knew what she had to be thinking. "Talk about a feast for the eyes," Junpei grinned. "Yuka-tan's wearing a more aggressive model than I had imagined! Could her boldness come from the confidence that her club training has toned her bod?"

Yukari looked at Akihiko again, wide-eyed. Akihiko resisted the urge to drown himself in the ocean. "Excuse me?" Yukari said coldly.

"Ooh, and check out our leader!" Junpei reared onto his toes as Arisato closed the distance from the dune, Fuuka in tow.

Despite himself, Akihiko also craned his neck to look. Fuuka was dressed in a modest number that covered most of her stomach. Arisato's swimsuit was much smaller – shell-pink and sharply cut, revealing huge swaths of skin that'd probably burn like toast under the sun. "She's one cute mermaid herself!" Junpei exalted. "Those curves she usually keeps covered up are lookin' good!" He grinned at her, throwing out an approving thumbs-up. "I can't tear my eyes away!"

Predictably, Arisato gave him an open-mouthed grin and a thumbs-up back. "Ugh, Hamuko, I swear, you make things so hard for the girls around you," Yukari said. "Can't you get offended even once in while? Please? Just look at the way he's ogling you!"

"We can see more of him than he can see of us," Arisato shrugged, adjusting her bobby-pins so that they held more of her hair back from her face. "Either way, we look better in ours than he does in his, so why should we be the ones to back down?"

"Ouch," Junpei said merrily, but he was already turning to salivate over Fuuka's arrival. He made brisk work of humiliating her before turning to Mitsuru, who was just now coming down the dune. Not really wanting to hear him objectify her, Akihiko turned away and made for the ocean. He could still get in a good workout if he left now and swam hard.

Junpei grabbed his arm before he could get more than a few steps. "Psst, Akihiko-senpai," he hissed, loud enough to be heard over half the island and perhaps on some of the passing ships. "Level with me. Which one's your type?"

"I don't—" He could feel his face starting to get red. "Leave me out of this."

"No way, man, spill it. I wanna know."

"I said no. Cut it out."

"Just tell me. I know you think _one_ of them's cute."

His eyes cut to Mitsuru, who was being currently being badgered by Yukari and Fuuka over what skin products she used. As if sensing his gaze, her own came up. She gave him a wry smile. "Dude, c'mon, who?" Junpei said impatiently.

He wanted to _swim._ Also he was going to combust. Skin skin _skin._ What answer would Junpei give him the least amount of grief over? Junpei and Arisato were technically friends, which meant the other girls were hypothetically on the table for him. Might as well go for Junpei's only non-viable option. "Arisato, all right? Now let me go."

Apparently he'd guessed wrong, because Junpei recoiled, letting him go. "Huh? _Really?_ "

"Keep your voice down!" he hissed, flustered by the intensity of the reaction.

"Man, really?" Junpei stared at him, all humor gone from his face. "No joke?"

"I…" Akihiko glanced at Arisato again. Her skin was smooth and pale, her hair brilliantly red. The array of silver bobby pins catching the light and throwing it back like a second sun. She was…

… … he really needed to swim.

* * *

.

The next morning he got up early to start his training. He briefly considered heading outside to run, but ultimately decided against it. He'd been here a few times in the past, but it'd be easy to get lost on an island this size. That and he wanted to be around in case Mitsuru needed him – and judging by the events of last night with the big reveal about Yukari's father, everyone was still a little on edge.

He pulled on his workout pants and a light t-shirt and got to work as the morning sun began creeping in through the window. Shadow boxing for five minutes to warm up. Stretch. A set of fifty sit-ups, a set of fifty-pushups. Rest. Five more minutes of shadow boxing. Rest. Fifty more sit-ups, fifty more push-ups. A total of a hundred each, which would look good and even on the charts. High knees for a full minute, then lunges until his thighs burned. Shadow boxing five minutes.

He was just finishing up when there came a soft knock on the door. He was dripping with sweat. He nabbed his beach towel from yesterday and scrubbed his face and neck before crossing the room to open the door.

Yukari stood there in a long t-shirt and sweatpants. Her hair was swept away from her face in a tiny ponytail. Her eyes were swollen like she'd gone to sleep crying, which made sense. "I heard noises," she said. "Is everything okay? What's going on?"

"Oh, sorry." He thought he'd been pretty quiet. It must've been the high knees. "I was just doing some early morning weight training. Sorry if it woke you up."

She shook her head. "I was already up." Then she peered past him and recoiled. "Ugh, it's a sauna in there."

"Really?" He hadn't noticed. "I'll open a window. I was just about finished anyway."

"I think they're about to start calling people down to breakfast. You probably have time to take a bath if you want to. Though I think Junpei's probably going to want to go down to the beach again right away, so I guess it's up to you."

"Okay." Mitsuru'd be up too, by now, if he knew her as well as he thought he did. "I'll get ready, then."

"Hey, senpai?" Yukari's voice stopped him before he could retreat. She looked tired and pale, but her jaw was set. "I just wanted to apologize," she said. "About last night. I don't think I got around to it, but I'm sorry for… yelling at Mitsuru-senpai. And for running off. I guess my head was kind of a mess."

"You should probably apologize to Mitsuru, not me," he pointed out. "But I didn't mind. It was some pretty bad stuff. It's easy for anybody to get messed up."

"I think I'm sorted out now. Things are different, but…" She took a big breath. "I think I can still find a reason to fight. It's just… everything changed at once. But I won't take it out on you guys anymore."

"Good to know." Really he'd been fine about it yesterday, but it sounded like she needed some reassurance to move on. "We've got your back, you know. You don't have to figure it out on your own."

"Yeah." She smiled up at him, but there was a sheen over her eyes. He hoped she wouldn't start crying, because then he'd probably have to escape into his room, and even he knew that was cruel. "I know that now."

"I'm gonna change," he said. "I'll meet you down at breakfast. If you see Mitsuru, tell her I'll be right down after I rinse off, okay?"

"Okay." She began to turn away, then hesitated.

He saw where she was looking and followed her gaze down. His t-shirt was soaked, sticking to his torso like a second skin. _Great._ Even when he was clothed he was naked. After yesterday's fiasco he'd had plans to wear a shirt down to the beach today. He'd had enough skin shown – by him and to him – to last him a year. "That must've been a really extreme workout," Yukari said.

"Not really. Just some of the usual sets. I'm just sweating because the room got stuffy."

"You know, I thought I noticed something different about you yesterday." Yukari's eyes swept him up and down again, and Akihiko surreptitiously pulled the damp material away from his skin. "You've been kind of intense about working out lately," she said. "I mean, more so than usual. Not to overstep or anything, but is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just didn't want to get out of shape over the break."

"You're not… trying to lose weight, are you? Because you really don't need to."

"No, it's nothing like that. Like I said, just trying to stay in shape."

"Okay," she said. She began to say something else, then cut herself off and shook her head. "Sorry to barge in. I'll tell Mitsuru-senpai you're coming."

"All right."

She moved on down the hall, sliding the band out of her hair as she walked. From across the hall, there came a thud and a curse as Junpei fell out of bed.

* * *

.

He'd never hit on a girl before, so it made sense in the cosmic order of things that his first time doing it would be on a robot. It made him feel better when she'd glommed on to Arisato in the forest, because obviously he never would have had a chance with her if that's the way she swung. And then he remembered _Aigis is a robot,_ and life went back to being incredibly confusing and a little stupid.

All in all the addition of Aigis to the line-up introduced some pretty significant concerns, like the fact that she hit like a truck and had guns built directly into her arms, which terrified him in ways that could be directly blamed on anime. "You're being ridiculous, Akihiko," Mitsuru said.

"Okay, I can't be the only one bothered by this." The wind was sweeping over the deck, twisting Mitsuru's hair into knots. Junpei had spent most of the afternoon swerving between open perversion and mortal despair over leaving Yakushima. Everyone, Aigis included, were below deck now, engaging in a card game with stakes that hopefully didn't involve clothing. "She may look human, but she's a robot. What if something gets messed up in there? The rest of us have non-lethal weapons. _Hers_ could take out a city block."

"I doubt she has that much power," Mitsuru said. "But in regards to your concern about her attacking us, I assure you the risk is minimal."

"What's so minimal about it? Look, she's a machine. With machines, there's always something that can go wrong. What if someone hacks her, turns her against us? How are we supposed to diffuse her if she goes off? She's a tank, Mitsuru. What do we have in our arsenal that can take that out?"

Mitsuru made a 'hmm'ing noise that was nearly swallowed up by the rumble of the ship's engines. She cut a beautiful figure leaning against the rail, dressed in white with her hair loose. She looked relaxed but preoccupied. "Akihiko, have you ever heard of the Turing test?"

"Turing?"

"It was a series of questions introduced in the 1950s by a scientist named Alan Turing. He performed extensive research on the possibility of artificial intelligence in machines. To this day his quest is simple but unanswerable. He wanted to know 'can machines think?' 'At what point does it stop being imitation and start being original thought?' He sought to reach the breakthrough point where machines begin exhibiting their own intelligence, rather than simply mimicking what they see."

"Okay, you've lost me," Akihiko said. "What does this have to do with her going off and shooting everybody on sight?"

"My point is, we haven't yet realized the depth of her capabilities," Mitsuru said. "Aigis was given a persona, yes. But as far as we know, only people with consciousness – some would say souls – can awaken to their own potential. And yet we don't even know if Aigis can think."

"Of course she can think. She answers us when we talk to her, doesn't she?"

"Yes, but are those responses a product of her programming, or are they original thoughts?" Mitsuru folded her arms over the rail, trusting her weight to it. "Do you recall our studies of Descartes? 'Cogito, ergo sum'? _Je pense, donc je suis?_ "

"Yeah," he said cautiously, not trusting Latin but confident enough in his French. "What about it?"

"You and I take advantage of our sense of self-realization because we have never known otherwise. But in reality, it's an incredible miracle. Aigis may speak and appear to think, but how do we know for certain where those thoughts originate from? Only when we understand that can we ascertain whether or not she has a conscience. And if she does…" Mitsuru shook her head. "If she does, then we truly are in the presence of something the world has never before seen."

It was all too deep for him. Honestly, he wasn't built to deal with those shades of grey. Shinjiro might've been able to keep up with what Mitsuru was getting at, and the juniors probably didn't care one way or the other, but Akihiko knew that in order for him to talk to Aigis like the rest of them did, he couldn't think of her as an inanimate object. "Fine," he said. "But as far as I'm concerned, she's part of the team if she fights with us, and that makes her no different than anybody else. If she talks and answers me, she's thinking, and that makes her responsible for her actions. So if she flips out, I'm not holding back."

Mitsuru finally turned her head to look at him. Her face was cast in the glow from the sunset, her lips curved into a soft, genuine smile. "What?" he said, a little defensively.

"You truly are remarkable, Akihiko," Mitsuru said.

Taken aback, he blinked at her a moment. The shadow of Iwatodai was starting to materialize on the horizon. Down below, he heard a roar of triumph amid Yukari's loud protests. "I appreciated your support this week," she said. "I don't know what I would've done without it."

"It's not your fault. They were keeping it from you too."

"Well." She tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear as she turned out towards the water again, the smile fading into a pensive expression. "I suppose we will have to see where these revelations take us."

"We can handle it."

"Yes." She turned her face up to the wind, letting the breeze stir the hair around her neck. "One certainly would hope so, wouldn't they."

* * *

.

 _Profound thanks go to my sole reviewer, BanchoutheWise, for giving me the feedback I'd prayed for. Every review lifts my spirits a bit higher._


	6. Sacred Chickens

**Chapter 6 - Sacred Chickens**

* * *

The dynamics shifted again. On their own, Fuuka and Aigis weren't noisy additions. It was more that with every person added, the space in the dorm seemed to decrease exponentially. No matter what time of the day or night Akihiko ventured out of his room, he seemed to run into somebody whether he liked it or not.

By the time they picked up Koromaru, Akihiko was starting to think that anything could have a persona. A _dog._ Why not a hamster? Why not a burger? He'd always wanted a dog but that wasn't the point. How was it not against dorm regulations?

The sound of Koromaru getting hit during fights was the sticking point by far. They'd all backed out on battles before when they'd taken critical hits, but they'd waited for Arisato's approval first because sometimes Arisato needed them to pull out a win, never mind how much it hurt. The first time Koromaru had taken a bad hit and Arisato had ordered, "Stay", Akihiko had rounded on her after the battle and bawled her out. You didn't look at a cringing, bleeding dog and say 'tough it out'. You told them to go and you took care of the rest of the fight yourself.

Arisato had looked startled at his outburst, but the next time it happened she followed his order and sent the dog away. Immediately after the fight Akihiko was ready with a healing spell for him, but to his surprise, Koromaru ignored him and slunk up to Arisato, tail down, ears back as if ashamed for running. Arisato dropped to both knees, murmuring to him as she lavished him with Diaramas. When she was done reassuring him and he was no longer whimpering, Koromaru slobbered kisses on her until she sputtered with laughter.

"I don't get it," Akihiko said to Mitsuru. "Any other animal would've run to the other side of the country by now."

"That dog is a warrior who wants to do his duty the same as everyone else here," Mitsuru said. "Don't diminish him. His spirit awakened. He wants to fight as much as the rest of us."

"Huh," he said, mystified.

That night after the Dark Hour, he sat on the couch in the common room and gave Koromaru the usual scratch behind the ears, then for the first time looked him in the eyes. They were a deep shade of red he'd never seen on a dog. Koromaru seemed to understand the importance of the conversation, because he returned the gaze levelly, without fidgeting. "You're a good boy, aren't you," Akihiko said.

Koromaru's tongue came out. He panted happily.

"I've got your back." He thought about feeling stupid, but then again, there was a robot living with them. Talking with a dog suddenly didn't seem all that crazy. Especially one who looked him right in the eye like he understood every word. "You mind having mine?"

Koromaru responded by licking him full in the face.

* * *

.

It still didn't feel right. After some consideration, Akihiko decided some number shuffling was in order.

He moved the calorie cap down 1500 and restructured his categories. Sit-ups now had a minimum of one hundred fifteen a day; push-ups had a minimum of seventy-five. There were now two mandatory runs a day regardless of whether or not they went to Tartarus – one before school, one sometime in the early evening – with a minimum of five kilometers to each run.

That done, he went onto foods. He hadn't previously vetoed anything because he hadn't felt it necessary, but now he realized that'd probably been part of the problem. He'd gone back and taken another look at the nutrition section at the library, allowing himself some more time for research. Complex carbohydrates were fine – he burned through them easily. Sugar seemed to be the biggest culprit.

He gave a green light to all fruits and vegetables, but x'd out anything with over four grams of artificial sugar in it. That vetoed his power drinks and power bars, but that was fine. Over the months they'd gotten too sweet for him anyway. He'd step up his consumption of brown rice and lower his consumption of white rice, which would be tricky but doable.

After the talk with Ryouta he'd cleared the air with the team, ran some damage control, and things had gotten more or less back to normal. After a few days on the new restrictions, Akihiko felt fast and tough and in control. His hits were dead-on and the respect was back in his teammate's eyes. Arisato had him anchor nearly every trip up to Tartarus, shuffling the rest of them and leaving him in for each return trip. He didn't care. He was unstoppable.

"You're really on fire, senpai," Junpei said after the latest night of successful exploration. "What the heck's your secret?"

"Discipline," Akihiko said, scrubbing the sweat off his face. "You should try it sometime."

Tartarus continued to go up.

* * *

.

He had an inherent hang-up when dealing with women, because his standards and preferences were at cross-purposes. He liked women who spoke their minds, but when girls were bold enough to ask him out in front of their friends, he felt kind of obligated to turn them down. If he said yes to the pushiest girl, he had a feeling the situation would escalate. On the other side were the girls who _didn't_ get in his face, in which case he forgot about them quickly. They weren't bold enough to be interesting and not outspoken enough to be memorable, so why say yes?

On the sixteenth of August Arisato managed to evade both of these situations by calling him up while he was doing his sets in his room. He hadn't even realized she had his number. Also he was fairly sure she was in the building, which made it even more of an ambush when she said, out of the blue, " _Would you like to go to the Summer Festival with me tonight?_ "

"Huh?" There was a stitch in his side and sweat in his eyes. He leaned against his desk momentarily, blinking rapidly, trying to figure out which hurt more.

" _There's a festival going on at the Naganaki Shrine this evening. I wanted to know if you'd like to go with me._ "

There was? … oh, right. Now that he thought about it, the girls had been talking about it all week. Yukari had already dug out her yukata and Junpei had already started salivating over seeing Yukari in her yukata. "You're going?"

" _That depends._ "

"On what?"

There was a laugh in her voice. " _Your answer._ "

Oh, right. He hadn't eaten breakfast yet and his head was a little light from the intensity of the workout, making it hard to think linearly. "Why not go with Junpei?"

" _Why should I go with Junpei?_ "

"Aren't you two dating or something?"

Again, that bizarre laugh in her voice. " _No._ "

"Oh." For some reason he thought they were. Junpei always maintained that they were 'bros', but Akihiko had thought it was just a smokescreen. He should have known Arisato would find a way to defy all expectations. "When is it again?"

" _This evening. I think it starts around six._ "

"Oh." He guessed that meant they weren't going to Tartarus. He'd have to forfeit his evening workout to – or maybe not. He could find a way to fit it in. Maybe at eleven, though that'd cut things pretty tight, being out in the city right at the turn of the Dark Hour.

Besides… _festivals_. Never mind anything else, it'd been ages. He'd always liked them, even if they'd mostly represented things he couldn't have. Prizes, candy, expensive clothes. He'd never felt envious of the other children visiting the festivals with their families, even as he wandered through the booths by himself, telling himself he was lucky for the freedom. It had been as bizarre and colorful a spectacle as the festival itself: off-limits, but pretty to admire. "You know what, sure," he said. "Why not."

" _Great! I'll be ready to walk over at 5:30, if you want to meet in the common area."_

"All right."

She hung up. He finished his sets, took a shower, and went down to eat breakfast.

He decided to fit in his evening workout early just to be safe. It only occurred to him, rinsing off again at 5:16 after a seven kilometer run, that he'd probably see girls from school there. He wasn't well-versed enough in this situation to know if it'd be a problem. If they saw him with another girl, would that encourage them or scare them off? Would they harass her? What was he supposed to be about it if they did?

It didn't matter, he finally decided as he pulled on clothes that didn't reek. Something told him if the situation arose, Arisato would deal with it handily enough without his input And even if she didn't, he was thinking too hard about it anyway.

Arisato was wrapped up pretty in a pink yukata when he came down the stairs. He'd braced himself all afternoon for the inevitability of small talk, but to his surprise their walk to the shrine was mostly sans dialogue. Arisato was gregarious enough in a group but seemed equally open to the idea of silent camaraderie, taking in the colorful festival banners swaying on the light posts without commentary. Gradually the crowd heading in that direction thickened and the side street met up with the main road, and at that point it became less an issue of conversing and more an issue of keeping track of each other in the sea of shifting color. "Wow, looks like business is booming," Akihiko observed. "There's a lot of people, too. Make sure you don't get lost, okay?"

Her voice carried over the din effortlessly without her seeming to need to raise it. "Should we hold hands?"

Hold hands? "What're you talking about?"

Arisato tilted her head to look up at him, expression amused, and he realized she was teasing him. He reluctantly broke into a grin. "I don't treat you _that_ much like a kid, do I?"

"I don't mind," she said, which pretty much was the same as saying yes. "It _is_ crowded in here. But those are the best kinds of festivals."

He was glad they were on the same page. He didn't consider himself a social person, but there was something comforting about the crush of the crowd, of being surrounded by people who were hoping to have as good a time as much as he was. "C'mon, let's go pay a visit to the shrine first," he said. "You don't mind, right?"

"Lead the way," she said.

They swam their way over gradually, going with the ebb and flow of the crowd. Light-headed as he tended to be at this time of day anymore, Akihiko was pleasantly inundated with sensory data: shouting children, the aroma of sizzling meat, childish buzzers and chimes and hanging lanterns chasing away the shadows in the shrine. There was traditional music playing somewhere that was loud enough to carry over the noise, but even when he craned his neck on tiptoes, he couldn't seem to locate the source.

Arisato was a slight, colorful figure beside him, her usual haphazard ponytail sleek and curling around her neck. Her habitual half-smile was a little deeper on her face as she took in the sights, as if she was visiting a cherished memory from another time. Akihiko found himself wondering when she'd last visited a festival. Had she gone with parents when they were alive? With a foster family? Had she gone with male friends before, or was this her taking a chance?

He realized with a start that he felt kind of guilty about it. He really was being pretty stiff and uncommunicative, even for him. She could've gone with anyone she chose, but she'd picked him. She was always shouldering the responsibility of the battles. Looking out for the others, handling their problems, dealing with her own stress where no one could see. The moments were rare when she really got to relax and enjoy herself. He owed it to her to at least try.

He waited until they'd fished up through the line of people waiting to pay their respects, then led them in a wide arc back to the main attractions. _Say something._ She looked beautiful, standing apart from the rest even in this sea of beautiful women. He wondered if she picked out her own yukata. Had her mother taught her to tie one?

He opened his mouth with the intention of saying any one of those things, but what came out was, "That looks hard to walk in."

Arisato glanced up. She seemed surprised he was talking. "You didn't have to wear a yukata here, you know," he said. "You could've just worn normal clothes. I wouldn't have minded."

"I don't get to wear yukata very often," she said, shrugging. He was pretty sure yukata weren't meant to be shrugged in. Or breathed in, from the looks of some of them. "Maybe it's vain, but I like to feel pretty once in a while."

Of all the things she could've said, that one made him feel the worst. "It just…" he blurted, with the intention of maybe getting his foot out of his mouth, then stopped when Arisato looked up at him expectantly. Either the heat of the night or the reflection of color from her yukata was giving her cheeks a rosy glow. "It just," he heard himself repeat, a little quieter, and was forced to clear his throat again. "It just makes it hard to look directly at you."

"I think it's the gravitational pull from my floral spirals," she said mildly, instead of punching his nose somewhere into his brain. "Do you want me to go home and change?"

"No, you look great in it. Don't get mad."

Unexpectedly, she laughed. It was a genuine, delighted laugh. "I'm _not_. Why are you always worried about me getting mad?"

"Something smells good," he said, giving up entirely. He pointedly turned towards the source and squinted at the banner for confirmation. "Oh, hey, takoyaki."

"It does smell good, doesn't it? It really grabbed me when we first walked in."

 _Perfect._ He couldn't have asked for a better opening. "Wanna share one? It's my treat."

Again she looked a little surprised. Before he could ask why, her expression eased into a gentle smile. "Sounds great."

Done. He dug out his money and headed straight for it, not bothering to wait for her. He was vaguely aware of the cook hitting on him, mistakenly calling Arisato his girlfriend, but he was too pleased with the upcoming distraction to worry much about it.

It was only after he'd suffered through a hot-as-hell piece of takoyaki that he remembered he didn't know the nutritional information of it. He slowed, still chewing, wondering how to calculate it. He'd had an expensive breakfast and lunch, bringing him up to nearly nine hundred calories before he'd even hit his afternoon workout. It only gave him about five hundred to work with for dinner, and then his quota would be hit.

He could ask the cook, but chances were he wouldn't know and anyway, Arisato was standing right there. He couldn't think of anything more emasculating. He'd have to err on the safe side and assume it was at least three hundred. There were two left, making it an even split. Maybe he could eat it and fit in an extra run tonight? Or he could eat half of his and pretend to drop the rest by accident.

As soon as he thought, _that's the dumbest thing I've ever,_ he interrupted himself by remembering _this is Arisato,_ and he shoved the rest towards her without explanation. Sure enough, she merely asked, "Is that okay?"

"I had a big lunch."

"All right," she said. She downed the rest with such a total lack of apology that he found himself breaking out into a grin again.

Weirdly enough, that was the thing that seemed to break the ice. He found himself talking to her more as they wandered, pointing out this or that just to internalize her reactions to it. Arisato seemed genuinely happy to be here, admiring the gaudy decorations and the chintzy prizes without a hint of irony. She took his stumbling attempts at conversation in stride, and soon Akihiko felt himself going back in time, looking at everything the way he had when he was a kid. He remembered one festival in particular he'd gone to when he was small, sneaking out of the orphanage to attend the festival down the street. An older woman – probably someone's grandmother – had seen him eyeing the goldfish-catching game and had called him over to give him enough yen for several tries. He hadn't questioned it then, but looking back, he wondered how she'd been able to tell he was alone. He was no different than the other children running around unsupervised. Maybe it'd been the way he'd stared at it so long without actually trying it, when all the other kids were spending their parents' money right and left and running back for more.

Miraculously, he'd caught one on his second try. He'd thought about keeping it, even fantasizing places he could secretly hide it – maybe filling the sink in the downstairs bathroom nobody used, or the bucket in the utility closet. He'd use his secret savings to buy it food and plants from the pet store so it would have a nice place to live. Then maybe, _maybe_ he'd show Shinji, if Shinji was really nice to him.

In the end he'd given it back to the vendor. Just the act of getting to _try_ the game – of getting lucky enough to actually win – had been enough to satisfy him. He ended up getting caught red-handed when he tried to sneak back in that night, but the adventure had been worth it. It always was.

It took him a while to realize he felt the weight of someone's gaze. Akihiko turned his head a little and realized an enormous wall of masks was looming on their left. Some savvy vendor had arranged hanging lights around the display to catch the glitter and glitz of the gems, but he spotted some more sophisticated ones on the sides, glowing with a satin-sheen and bedecked with monochrome plumage. "Hey, I remember these," he said, too excited to curb his enthusiasm. "Let's check them out."

He felt rather than saw her follow. For a moment he was ten years old again, lost in the constellation glitter of sequins. There were probably at least three dozen on the pegs, some melancholy, some with eye ridges that curved upwards like a _saki mitama._ They looked pricey as hell, but when he checked the nearest tag, he discovered they were only 500 yen.

 _Only 500 yen._ He had to laugh at himself. "It's weird, isn't it," he mused aloud. "I remember wanting one of these so bad as a kid – just saving up all year for it. No matter how much I saved, I never seemed to have enough squirreled away by the time the festival rolled through town. Miki used to get nervous when strangers came to the orphanage, so I had this big plan to buy her one to wear during the visits. I thought that if she stood out enough, someone would be curious enough to get close and see how pretty she was underneath the mask. Kind of stupid, right?"

There was no response. Akihiko glanced down with a self-conscious grin, kind of hoping he hadn't spoiled the moment, but froze when he saw her expression. Arisato was similarly fixated on the display, but there was no wonder on her face. Her eyes were set and unblinking, her mouth set in a straight, hard line. As he watched, her hand flinched upwards, her fingertips resting lightly behind the curve of her jaw.

Unsettled, he asked quietly, "You all right?"

"Hey, you two!"

He jumped. A vendor was waving at them from their right, voice effortlessly lifting above the crowd. "Would you like to play Lucky Draw?"

Arisato flinched out of her daze. She blinked up at Akihiko uncomprehendingly for a moment, then over at the vendor.

By the time her attention came back to him, her smile was back as though nothing had happened. "What do you think?" she remarked. "Should we try it?"

"All you have to do is pick a ball!" The vendor pounced on their hesitation, sensing easy prey. "Everyone's a winner!"

"Lucky Draw, huh?" Akihiko said, kind of wondering whether to pursue the other thing. What had set that off? The masks were pretty intense but they weren't really all that scary. "I've always wondered whether it's really possible to win the stuff on display. How about you go for it? Give it a try. I'll pay."

He wasn't disappointed. Arisato lit up at the offer. "You really don't mind?"

"No, not at all. Here." He dug out some yen and passed it over. "Show him what you've got. In my opinion, he doesn't know what he's in for."

She grinned and took the offering. Fuuka would have blushed and refused and Yukari would have bristled like a tomcat and then refused. Arisato really was something else. If more girls were like her he wouldn't have such a problem talking to them.

Arisato paid the vendor and stuck her hand inside the game box. He expected her to draw one out immediately, but she sifted them around for a while, tilting her head as if sensing the numbers inside.

The vendor raised an eyebrow at him. Akihiko only shrugged, used to her whimsy. "Ah hah," Arisato said triumphantly, and pulled one of them out with a flourish.

"Woah!" The attendant recoiled in over-exaggerated surprise. "Man, you've got some luck to win something at our booth, miss!"

"Oh, I try," Arisato laughed.

"Here's your prize." The attendant reached behind him and lifted a Jack Frost doll off of its peg. He handed it to her with gusto. "Sure to keep you cool on a hot summer's night. Congratulations!"

Arisato took it and immediately hugged it to her the way all girls did when they encountered plush toys. He'd seen her blast a an Indolent Maya with an Agilao so powerful it had splattered it up against the ceiling of Yabbashah. She was utterly untranslatable. At first he'd thought it had to do with her changing personas, that randomness, but seeing her honest delight at a cheap festival prize made him wonder if that had anything to do with it. Maybe that was just the way she was. Taking pleasure in the small things and taking care of business when it was time to get serious.

 _I wonder if Miki would have turned out like her,_ he thought, watching her chat with the attendant. Confident, happy. Able to both give and to receive. He wondered how much of a hand he would've had in that. Maybe it would've happened on its own. Maybe she would've been the strong one, and he would've been the one to lean on her strength. "Good thing for him I wasn't aiming for first place," Arisato said to him as they walked away, a catlike expression of satisfaction on her face. "I've been after one of these for ages."

"I'm glad you held back," Akihiko said. "I'd hate for you to use up all your luck here, of all places."

"Me? I've got plenty to spare. You should try a game too while I'm here. My luck is catching."

"Is that right?" He got a kick out of the way she said it so matter-of-factly. He cast about for a game to try to call her out on it, then stopped short when he saw a trough.

He moved forward without thinking, apologizing when he accidentally jostled someone's shoulder, and squatted to take a closer look.

The goldfish reacted to his presence with well-earned paranoia, darting away from his shadow. They made up a prism of shifting colors under the surface of the water, some of them a deep enough orange as to nearly be red. The inside of the trough itself had been painted black, presumably to give them the illusion of cover.

He was aware of Arisato coming up behind him. It took all of his effort not to trail his fingertips in the water like he'd done when he was a kid. Just to feel the currents as they swam. "The mask was for Miki, but _this_ was what I was interested in as a kid," he said, almost to himself. "I'd actually miss out on half the shops because I'd stand here so long watching everybody play. I remember always hoping the fish would go to good homes. How they'd live in these huge aquariums and have big fish families, you know? Pretty stupid, huh? Now I know half of them die on the way home, just from the shock of the trip."

"You keep saying that," Arisato said. She sounded quiet, tone unreadable. "It's not stupid. None of it. Not in the slightest."

"Yeah, well." Something hurt. He curled one hand into a loose fist, feeling a spot in his chest that was both warm and cold. "Even now I don't have a place to put it, even though I have the money to play. Some things never change, huh?"

She didn't answer. The fish slowly crept back in towards his shadow, making little ripples whenever they came too close to the surface. Shaking his head, Akihiko braced his hands on his knees and rocked himself back into a standing position.

There was a sudden warm, prickling rush and a sound like a swarm of insects. The lights slid around him sharply, and when he blinked his vision clear, he was leaning against Arisato. She'd spread her feet and dropped her stance to support his weight. "What?" he said.

She sounded breathless. "Are you all right?"

"Nice catch, missy," the game attendant said from behind the counter. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Puzzled, he shrugged his way out of her grip. Her hand lingered on his arm as he straightened. "Did I trip?"

"I think you stood up too fast."

Seriously? "Sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No."

Huh. Despite the takoyaki earlier, his head still felt a little light. Maybe he'd pushed too hard today. Her Jack Frost doll had fallen to the ground; he bent to pick it up for her, this time straightening a little more cautiously. His vision stayed clear. He brushed the dirt off and handed it back to her. "Sorry," he said again.

"It's okay."

He looked around, only then noticing that the sky was completely dark. It seemed like as good a time as any to call it quits. "Did you see everything you wanted to?"

"Yes. Thanks for going with me tonight." She grinned at him shamelessly. "I hope you enjoyed at least some of it."

"I enjoyed all of it," he said honestly. "I had fun taking a breather. Thanks for inviting me."

She shrugged. "Thanks for picking up the phone."

* * *

.

During the next few days Tartarus took a backseat to boxing duties. The meet was Saturday and the team had been running extra drills without his input, neurotically checking the scales, trimming and bulking within the tenth of the kilogram. Akihiko and the supervisor had already squared away transportation and had made sure everyone's equipment was up to code. They'd spent a late evening checking the numbers, weighing the matches and the probabilities. On paper they owned a narrow win, but with one of their stars temporarily out with an Achilles tendon injury, it was closer than Akihiko would have preferred. "Relax, you know it's going to be a walkover," Kenichi said on Thursday, grunting as he helped him take down the bag in the corner. "After all, we've got you on the team. We're practically unbeatable."

He had to disagree. Also an on-paper statistical win was a lot different than a win in the ring. Under the roar of the crowd and the pressure to perform, a match could go either way at any time. A last-minute burst of adrenaline could be a game changer for either side.

On Friday they filed down to Edogawa for the usual pre-match weigh-in. As was his duty, Akihiko hung back at the end, keeping his eye on the numbers. The crowd-neuroses had evidently paid off, because everyone was on track and in their proper categories for once, making things a lot easier. As long as nobody threw up or pigged out that night, they were set to go.

When the last member of the team had been weighed and the team was filing out, Edogawa motioned for Akihiko to step up. Akihiko made short work of his shirt as Edogawa switched the paper on the bottom of the scale. "Once again, Sanada-kun, you stand here on the eve of battle," Edogawa said. "Planning to lead your army to victory?"

"You know it."

"Confident as usual?"

"They've worked hard. It'll be a piece of cake."

"You know, it used to be quite a process determining the outcome of battle." Edogawa took the opportunity to check the calibration on the scale. "In ancient times, observing the auspices and omens were as much an essential part of the process as physical training. You would be considered quite unprepared."

It was cold in the clinic. Feeling a wave of goosebumps travel up his arms as his skin was exposed, Akihiko kicked out of his pants and slid off his wrist weights. "Auspices?"

"Divine favor. Sponsorship, if you will. To the Romans, victory was considered proof of divine support. Before any major undertaking, political or military, the augers – those who interpret the omens – would be called upon to read the signs around them. They could be as simple as the turn of a leaf or as complex as the formation of passing birds. They would then translate the meaning of the signs to the officials, and only then did the battle plans proceed."

"Huh," Akihiko said. "Sorry, but I don't believe in superstitions."

"Oh?" The light shifted on Edogawa's glasses. He sounded amused. "Have you ever heard of the battle of Drepana, 249 BC?"

"No?"

"It was a naval battle that took place during the first Punic War between the Carthaginian and Roman fleets. The senior consul at the time was a man named Claudius Pulcher. His plan was to slip into the harbor in the dead of night, already in battle formation, and spring the surprise attack at sunrise. It was a daring strategy, but in those conditions, without moonlight to give them away, the Romans never saw them coming."

"What happened?" Akihiko said, interested now despite himself. This was the part of history class that always interested him. Not so much the battles themselves, but how the pieces were set up before the game. "Did they win?"

"Oh, no. Nearly every one of their ships was sunk. It was a disaster."

Akihiko blinked at him. "I thought you said the Romans never saw them coming."

"Ah, but see, all the conditions had not been met," Edogawa said. "As I said, it was customary to read the omens to determine whether or not fortune was in their favor. In this case, they kept a gathering of sacred chickens aboard the flagship for that purpose. Grain was offered to them directly before the battle. If they ate it, then the fleet knew the gods were in their favor. If they refused, they knew they were sailing against providence."

"Sacred chickens," Akihiko said.

"They took the ritual quite seriously."

"So you're saying the chickens didn't eat?"

"Not only did they not eat, Pulcher reportedly threw them overboard in a fit of pique," Edogawa said. "Terrified by the ill-omen, his crews became scattered in the dark and arrived at the harbor in complete disarray. The Carthaginians took them apart easily, and Pulcher fled back to Rome in disgrace."

"Sacred chickens," Akihiko said again.

"Stranger things have been known to influence fate, Sanada-kun. Go ahead, it's ready."

Akihiko stepped up on the scale, feeling the chill of the platform seep through the tissue. He curled his toes to combat it and waited as for the lever to stop swinging, not bothering to look at the number. He'd already weighed himself that morning on the club's scale. "So you're saying I should feed a bunch of sacred animals tomorrow so my team doesn't lose at the meet?"

"I'm saying that a good commander learns to read all of the signs around him, visible and invisible," Edogawa said. "The lesson here isn't that Pulcher incited the anger of the gods by harming the chickens, though of course that's a possibility. It was that in ignoring the unseen and dismissing his instincts, he weakened the confidence of his crew and ultimately betrayed himself. Can you claim to know everything there is to know about this existence of ours? There is a great deal more to us than what can be seen with the naked eye."

"That's the truth," Akihiko muttered before he could stop himself.

Edogawa looked up at the lever, pencil ready, and paused. He adjusted his glasses with a flick of his thumb. "Am I all set?" Akihiko asked, itching to get on with it. It was cold in here and he had more to square away with his advisor before heading out.

Edogawa didn't respond a minute. He marked down the number, then rolled back in his swivel chair to access a drawer down by his knee. After searching through the files a moment, he slid one out and opened it on the counter to thumb through it.

"Sir?" Akihiko said.

"Oh," Edogawa said absently. "Yes, you can get dressed."

Akihiko stepped down and shrugged his way back into his shirt, then pulled up his pants.

As he was fastening the belt and turning to leave, Edogawa said, "A moment more, Sanada-kun."

"Yes sir?" The team had long since filed out to head for the locker room. Trying not to look like he had somewhere to be, Akihiko paused on his way to the door, hoping it was something that could be communicated across the room.

"Have a seat." His hopes were dashed when Edogawa reached out and thumped the edge of the examination table lightly with his pen.

Great. Akihiko turned in resignation and did as directed. Edogawa's propped the file in his lap and swiveled around to look at him. Upon closer inspection, Akihiko realized with a start that it was his school physical forms from the beginning of the year.

Edogawa scratched the back of his head for a while with the blunt end of his pen, rhythmic and slow, contemplating the page in front of him. "I'm noticing a bit of a discrepancy in the numbers from this exam as compared to your numbers in April," he said abruptly.

"A discrepancy?"

"As you know, I took your weight in the physical examination at the beginning of the year. At that point you were sixty-five kilograms. A normal weight for your height and physique."

"Okay."

"You went briefly up to 66.7 during your month and a half long suspension, which is also normal, considering the lack of activity. It says now that your weight has gone down to 63.8."

Akihiko waited a minute, but nothing else seemed forthcoming. "Is that a problem?"

"It's a bit of a drop," Edogawa said.

"Not really. I came in heavier than usual at the beginning of the year anyway. This is about where I was last year."

"Yes, except that the reason you came in heavier at the beginning of this year was because it'd been a full year since your last physical exam, and you'd grown several centimeters," Edogawa said. "Most of us keep growing into our early twenties. I predict another several centimeters on you yet. Did your advisor ask you to switch weight categories?"

"Of course not," Akihiko said, getting a little irritated at Edogawa's strange persistence. "I'm sorry, but I don't get what the problem is. Three kilograms isn't a big deal."

"I wouldn't call it a problem exactly, which is why I used the word 'discrepancy'," Edogawa said. "My point is, last year's number is irrelevant. It would be different if you were overweight to begin with, but if anything, you tend to clock in below average for your height. Dropping weight at this part of the season is not typical."

"I'm still in my weight category."

"By the skin of your teeth," Edogawa said. "But again, not the point. You really don't think a three kilogram drop in weight during this part of the season is unusual?"

"Not really."

Edogawa didn't respond for a full minute, tapping his knee with his pen. There was no activity whatsoever in the hallway outside, leaving the clinic uncomfortably still.

After a while Edogawa stirred. "I see. Well, you're free to go. May almighty Bellona grant you victory in your quest for glory."

"Thanks." Akihiko slid off the table in a hurry, though he couldn't resist adding, "Though I'm guessing she probably has better things to do."

"Oh, one ever knows," Edogawa said. "The gods are capricious. One never knows to whom they grant their attention."

* * *

.

They won the meet, and the one after. Tartarus explorations continued and Shinjiro didn't come home, and Akihiko got used to fighting with a robot and a dog at his side. He got the sensation it was all supposed to feel weirder, but the leaves were changing on time and the world was still turning despite him trying to throw on the brakes, so all the ball-shrinking weirdness wasn't making an impact on anybody else, apparently.

Unsettled, not sure why he was unsettled, Akihiko switched gears and entered a zone of his own. Mornings started out with a run before breakfast. Breakfast was simple but strict, capping at six hundred calories, making it the biggest meal of the day. Shower, school, and then a light lunch of no more than four hundred calories, leaving five hundred left for dinner. Depending on the day of the week, boxing practice. Rest. Dinner. An evening run. Studying or fixing his equipment in the late evening. Tartarus.

To his irritation, the no-frills schedule seemed to be hindering rather than helping. Despite his dedication to the routine, it was harder to get out of bed in the morning, to get himself motivated for that first workout. He found his mind wandering more often during class, and the lack of attention soon manifested during homework and, most unforgivably, during the briefings before Tartarus. The more he tried to exercise self-control, the less he seemed to get done.

It reached its head when Ken Amada joined SEES. Distracted by Ken's presence and his own hang-ups over the situation, Akihiko's mistakes started leaving the realm of inconvenient and entering the realm of clinical stupidity. Getting crit-shot in Tartarus, leaving his homework on the bar, slipping as he came down the stairs. Little, annoying things that added up, the way snowflakes eventually became an avalanche.

It wasn't fair to blame it on Ken, but the fact was, having the kid whose mother your best friend offed living right down the hall from you was a distraction at best and a game-breaker at worst. Akihiko tried to compartmentalize it, but ultimately it ended up messing with his head. Daily life had changed yet again, and this time it wasn't just a matter of getting used to Fuuka's voice in his ear instead of Mitsuru's. It was getting used to the kid's intense gaze and the quiet, jagged edges of his smile and the feeling that wherever Akihiko went, the kid was already there, disassembling Akihiko down to all the parts of himself he hated.

He ran himself through the workstations during practice on Monday even though it was technically an off-day for weight training, trying to clear his head. When the footwork drills were over, he invited Toji for some pad work, hoping to correct some sloppiness he'd seen from him at the meet. Focusing on someone else's problems, rather than swimming through the sea of his own.

He slid on the mitts and chest protector, not bothering with the head gear. Toji fumbled with his own, jittery as usual with the one-on-one attention. To coax him out of it, Akihiko made it easy for him at first, calling combos out for him to follow. Jab, jab, hook. Jab, cross, uppercut. He held the pads back, letting Toji do the work to reach him, until he was satisfied that Toji had pummeled out the worst of his nerves. "Okay," Akihiko said, using his wrist to run the sweat off his chin. "Let's freestyle. Follow my lead."

Toji followed his lead, adjusting with Akihiko's pointers, fixing his mistakes without attitude. He'd make a good anchor if he could get over his timidity. Just to test it, Akihiko slapped a bit, giving the deflections some oomph, letting Toji feel the recoil from the hits. He kept the rest of the team in his periphery to monitor their progress, at one point spotting another teacher sticking their head in the door to speak to Ryouta. The advisor looked over the crowd to meet Akihiko's gaze, signaling Akihiko that he'd be out of the room, and Akihiko lifted a gloved hand in acknowledgement. "I feel bad you're wasting all this time on me," Toji said. His damp hair was clinging to his forehead, mashed down by the head gear. "It's not like I'm going to get any better this time of the season."

"Who says?" Akihiko said. "Come on. Let's up the intensity. Swing like you mean it."

Toji ran his forearm over his face, hiding it for a moment. "Shake it off," Akihiko said. "Come on. Give it a few good ones."

Toji didn't say anything, but he nodded behind his arm. He lifted his gloves again, braced his stance, and threw a combo. "Harder," Akihiko said. "I barely feel you."

"You barely feel me because you've got ten centimeters of padding on you," Toji groused, out of breath. Akihiko deflected the next two hits down gently, then swept a hand over Toji's shoulder to invite Toji into throwing a hook. After a few more redirections he came in again, pushing lightly against Toji's shoulders to expose his own midsection, and Toji took the invitation again.

Akihiko kept an eye on his own footwork, making sure he slapped Toji's gloves with no more than thirty percent of his strength. He kept Toji coming at him, constantly on the move, until Toji was dragging in air harshly. He led them around the corner and back out again, and all of a sudden something sparked in his head. "You okay, senpai?" Toji panted, noticing him falter.

"Yeah." Sweat was running into his eyes. The air in the gym suddenly seemed weirdly warm, the ring unusually buoyant under his feet. "C'mon. One more minute. Dig in. Come at me."

He deflected two jabs, felt the sting of them; drew the circle back around Toji's shoulders again, felt the impacts on his torso, drew back, lifted his guard, led the next two strikes away, and the feeling came again, sending up a weird slew of mismatched sensory data. They'd gone into Yabbashah last night and Ken had summoned Zionga bright enough to burn his eyes. Lightning over the brilliant backdrop of blue, like a storm coming in over the sea. Akihiko could feel the ricochet of it traveling through the floor and humming in his shoes, buzzing behind his teeth, and had resented the fact that lightning was yet one more thing he had to share as the team expanded. One more specialty that was no longer exclusive.

There was a pulse of static at the corner of his eye. Hassled, distracted, Akihiko's eyes slid to it.

The world exploded. He heard a yell and there was the thud of impact, and sounds slid out of order for a while.

When he came back to himself he was on his ass on the floor of the ring and Toji was kneeling beside him, tearing his gloves off. There were shouts and footsteps, the ropes yawning behind Akihiko's back as others worked themselves into the ring. "Shit shit shit shit." Toji was frantic. "Talk to me."

"Don't fuss," Akihiko gritted. His left eye had slammed shut against the onslaught of pain. "I'm fine."

"Why were you swinging that hard in the first place?" Ryouta snapped at Toji, skidding to a halt beside Akihiko. Ignoring Akihiko's one-eyed glare, he grabbed his chin and cranked his head back. "Someone get Ashida-sensei. Ken, grab a towel."

"What," Akihiko began, but there was something running down his face, making it hard to talk. Kenichi was there a second later with a clean towel, tilting his head back, pushing it up under his nose. "Shit," Ryouta said. "You must have tagged him just right."

"Look, he told me to come at him." Toji's usually quiet voice was aggrieved. "I thought he was ready. He was looking right at me."

"Neither of you had on headgear. You _know_ how Ashida is about that. If you were going to up the intensity you both should've been decked out."

"I never even broke through before with him in a real bout, I had no idea he was just gonna let me hit him!"

"Look, both of you, stop it," Akihiko snapped, muffled, grabbing the towel for himself. _A bloody nose._ He couldn't remember the last time he'd had one of those. "It was my fault, okay? I gave him the invitation, I just got distracted."

"No offense, Sanada, but you were stupid not to wear gear," Ryouta said. "I don't care if it was pad work. Toji, you too. It doesn't matter that you've never broken through before, all it takes is once."

"Look, what's done is done, all right?" Akihiko said. "Get off his back. I'm the captain, it was my responsibility. Come on, help me up."

"Let's just wait for Ashida-sensei. He's going to want to check you out anyway."

"He can do that with me standing up." Akihiko flailed for the ropes, and with reluctance Kenichi and Ryouta took either side, helping to pry him up by his elbows. The other members of the team were weirdly silent, hanging back in the periphery. The lights in the room were overbright and to Akihiko's intense displeasure, the light-headedness came back in a wave while everyone watched. _Perfect._ All he needed was a knee to the groin to put the cherry on top of the day. "Listen, guys, I'm fine," Akihiko said, trying to head off any more awkwardness before the situation went critical. "You guys should get back to practice."

"Just a sec." Ryouta glanced up as the door opened and Sato poked his head in. "Find him?"

"He's not in his room or the teacher's lounge. You want me to check the other building?"

"Guys, _I'm fine_. I just needed a second." The flow already felt like it was tapering off. Akihiko massaged very gently, pinching here and there, but felt none of the telltale grind. Not broken. He kept his head back another minute, then cautiously took the towel away. It was stained bright red. He folded it and found a clean spot, cautiously swiping at his upper lip again. A lighter smear of red appeared on the white, but when he dabbed his nose again, no new drops appeared.

"Never seen you go down that hard before," Kenichi said, and Akihiko realized belatedly that the others had been watching him. "Scared the shit out of us."

"Sorry," he said. Ryouta still had a hold of his arm. Akihiko shrugged out of it and spread his feet so he wouldn't sway on them in front of company. "Keep practicing. We've got about fifteen more minutes. I'm gonna go clean up, but I'll be back."

For some reason none of them responded. Kenichi was the first to shift uneasily, glancing at Ryouta. "Man, come on," Ryouta said. "Just go home. We got this."

"What? No. I'm fine. It's just a bloody nose."

"Practice is almost over anyway. Just tag out."

"I'm not—"

"Sanada," Ryouta said.

Akihiko trailed off. The others were managing to look anywhere but him, their expressions watchful and guarded. Toji stood off to the side, agitatedly running the sweat off his face and neck, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Fine," Akihiko said, into the silence. "Make sure you guys get everything. And remember to lock up."

"We got it," Ryouta said. "Take it easy, man."

He showered and changed in the locker room, then balled up the towel and shoved it in his duffel to clean at the dorm. That night he ran harder than he had before, swinging out the long way past the bridge and down to the water. The blood pounded in his face from the first few steps, making his nose and jaw throb in time with his heart.

When he got back he bypassed a second shower and instead grabbed his dietary notebook from his desk. Sweating, lungs and legs and blood burning, he sat in the middle of the floor and remapped the numbers one by one until things started to align in his head again.

When he was done, he underlined the new calorie cap with a hard stroke of his pencil. He could vaguely hear Ken entering the room down the hall, but the air felt suddenly oppressive and cold, muffling sounds until he could barely hear past the pounding in his ears.

 _Get it the hell together, Sanada._

* * *

 _._

 _Thank you to those who stopped by to read, and an even more heartfelt thanks for those who stop to leave their feedback. It's invaluable._


	7. Crosshairs

**Chapter 7 – Crosshairs**

* * *

"Don't tell me Amada was the _one_ thing that convinced you to come back after all this time," Akihiko said. "Because I really will punch you in the face."

"I'll make sure to pretend it hurts," Shinjiro said, and dropped his backpack. It fell onto the empty bed with a suspicious _clank._

* * *

 _._

Shinjiro was just as strong as ever, which pissed Akihiko off pretty righteously. Akihiko had been training nonstop for _years_. Fasting, lifting, running, breaking himself down so he could build himself up again. The first time they'd battled shadows as a three-man team, Shinjiro had swiped up a random chair from the meeting hall and used that to bash through half of Tatsumi Port Island. Even summoning with his Evoker looked like he was pulling the moon down from the sky. It'd been effortless. And even when it hadn't been, he'd made it look that way, which was nearly as intimidating.

Now that their team had expanded, the end-level obstacle in Yabbashah no longer afforded them a challenge. They shook off the last of the shadows and left them to evaporate in the light, and the barrier to Tziah parted for them like a curtain of jewels.

Akihiko was fairly sure he was the only one who felt a pang of regret when they climbed the last staircase. He wasn't unstable enough to form an actual emotional dependency on it, but Yabbashah itself had kind of reminded him of the ocean: blue and vast with undulating reflections, percussive like the pulse of water over the shore. He hadn't bothered to ask if the others could hear it, because he had the feeling it was largely being interpreted through Polydeuces. That recognition of spatial relationships, of life-rhythms that went deeper than ears could hear. In a weird way he didn't want to discuss, it bothered him to leave the rhythm of Yabbashah behind, the way it bothered him to leave puzzles half-finished.

Tziah on the other hand instantly, ferociously irritated him, and it didn't take him long to figure out that he was going to have to change up his combat style in order not to be a hindrance. He could hear Junpei salivating over the solid gold walls, but all Akihiko could focus on was the jagged edges and cold floors and the enemies strong enough to mash his fists into pulp. The color scheme was like heat lightning, constantly catching the corner of his eye, making him irritable and dizzy. Where Yabbashah had passed around them in waves, Tziah was a constant explosion of light and movement. Distractions that he used to be able to dismiss now caught his eye and yanked his attention up more frequently. The glint of their evokers. The shine on the blades. Their reflections as they ran across the floor.

He watched Shinjiro skulk around Tartarus like a punk and watched the juniors look at him like he was some kind of god, when really Shinjiro was neither. He was a kid with a bad attitude who could hit things really, really hard. Arisato, freshly decked out with a scarf that repelled Garu and a new naginata that glinted like a half-moon, seemed to realize this and maybe something else, because she put Shinjiro into the rotation and proceeded to leave him in for the next three trips.

Akihiko wanted to tell her to ease off already, that Shinjiro hadn't battled in years, that he'd push himself too hard if she let him, but by the third return trip there was a glint in her eyes that he'd never seen before. She headed back up with the both of them, Yukari in tow, to tackle a floor overrun with Mayas.

Akihiko tried to mind his own business, but it was a lot like trying to tune out a loud marital dispute on public transportation. Arisato would give Shinjiro an order and he'd ask her _who the fuck do you think you are_ , and then the battle would dissolve into explosions and the singing descent of her naginata and his loud, expressive cursing. More often than not Yukari and Akihiko would be left standing there awkwardly after the battle while Shinjiro got in Arisato's face and she got right back into his, matching his volume decibel for decibel.

Akihiko didn't get a chance to ask Mitsuru about it, because in some sort of vindictive determination, Arisato ran them all until they were half-dead. At the end of the Dark Hour the team returned, sweaty and bloodied and staggering under an irreligious amount of loot. He thought Arisato would ease up now that she'd proved her point, but the second day they turned right back around and did it all again, Akihiko anchoring and Yukari healing, Arisato strike-forcing through the front lines with Shinjiro on her heels.

This time Akihiko caught an unlucky hit behind the ear early on and knocked his own stupid lights out by crashing headfirst into a support beam. He came to with Shinjiro cradling his head from the floor and bellowing at Arisato over his shoulder for the bad call, and at that point Akihiko was too fed up with their bullshit to protest when Arisato insisted on bringing him back down to the lobby to swap him out for Junpei.

Akihiko let himself be tended to by Mitsuru while he listened to the ghostly echo of the battles reverberating inside the barrier of Fuuka's persona. Arisato would call out an order and Shinjiro would tell her to go fuck herself, and then he'd follow the order anyway, and together they'd plow through the offense with psychotic efficiency: her slicing laterally and him crashing down with his bludgeon, creating crosshairs before which the enemy kept falling, one and then ten and then fifty.

Fuuka, fretful over the dissent, tried repeatedly to smooth things over as she directed them on strategy. Akihiko could practically hear Yukari's eyes rolling from all the way on the other end of Tartarus. "They're gonna kill themselves," Akihiko muttered, staring, then hissed as Mitsuru smoothed ointment over the site of the injury.

"Perhaps," Mitsuru said, her own eyes riveted to the ghostly afterimages of the battle playing inside Lucia's shell. "But they will bring Tartarus down with them."

At their feet, Koromaru gave a jaw-cracking yawn.

* * *

.

With Shinjiro's arrival, questions Akihiko had been suppressing for a while began to rise back up to the surface. Some were more abstract and unanswerable than others, but most of them basically boiled down to Why. Why him. Why this persona. Why this element.

He couldn't even say the name because his tongue wasn't trained to form those syllables. Polydeuces. _Pori-dyu-ku-su._ The right pronunciation was in his heart, but by the time it got up to his mouth it sounded wrong. Mostly he just shot himself and lightning came out, and then he'd spend the entire battle rotation wishing more shadows had stomachs so he could just suckerpunch them and never mind the persona bullshit.

It was chicken and egg questions mostly. Like if Polydeuces had always been in his heart and that's why he was a boxer. Or if he'd already been a boxer, and that's why Polydeuces had chosen him. If Shinjiro was Castor because Akihiko was Polydeuces, or vice versa, and that's why they were friends even though they routinely punched each other in the mouth. Because they were cosmic twins. Or something.

It made his head hurt. He drank some water and decided it mostly dehydration, but thoughts were knocking around in his head harder lately. He needed help organizing and there was no shame in outsourcing.

It was mid-morning on a Sunday and the lobby would be deserted, which meant he could prepare breakfast in peace. Wondering if pondering existential questions burned calories, Akihiko was all the way down to the last stair before he belatedly picked up the telltale patter of a keyboard.

He had no time to backtrack as Fuuka glanced up from her place on the sofa, alerted to his presence. "Oh, good morning, Akihiko-senpai," she said, surprised. "I didn't realize anyone was still left in the building."

"Hey," Akihiko said, alert. He surreptitiously took in the rest of the room, then pushed his hands into his pockets. "Is everybody else gone?"

"Yes, everyone left really early today." Fuuka's natural sunshine made him feel even more like an asshole. "Hamuko-chan made a wonderful breakfast this morning. She left some labeled for you in the refrigerator. She asked me to tell her if you liked it."

"Sounds good." Normally when this happened he'd foist his portions off on the dog when no one was looking, but Koromaru wasn't here and Fuuka was looking right at him, waiting for a response. Akihiko knew better than to skip breakfast entirely because it screwed with his afternoon workout, but Arisato tended to play fast and loose with recipes. He had no idea what she'd made, but whatever it was, it'd be a far cry from a boiled egg and a cup of miso soup.

He was still debating how to answer when Fuuka inadvertently saved him. "It's getting late in the morning, though. I'm sure she would understand if you didn't want to spoil your appetite for lunch."

"Yeah," he said, trying not to sound too relieved. "That's just what I was thinking. Thanks for telling me, though. I'll save it for tomorrow."

"Are you going out? Everyone seems so busy today. I feel so lazy in comparison."

He began to say 'no', then abruptly changed his mind because actually, why not. "Yeah, I have a few errands to run."

"Okay. Have a good time."

"Sure. Thanks."

Fuuka looked back down at her computer screen and was engrossed again within seconds, as though the conversation had never happened.

Knocked off-kilter, Akihiko debated what he was supposed to do next. He could make breakfast as planned, but it felt weird now that there was someone right outside the kitchen door. When he turned around to retreat to his room, he remembered he'd just told her he was planning on going out. He had to get his jacket, but he should probably eat first.

… actually, come to think of it, Fuuka was always seeing things that none of the rest of them saw. Akihiko blinked up the stairs, losing himself in the veil of dust motes as he tried to figure out how not to be weird for two minutes. The lobby was peaceful behind him, the stillness undercut by the mechanical flutter of keys.

He dropped back down to the landing. He cut across the kitchen area and eased back against the dining table, bracing himself on his hands to wait.

It took Fuuka a long time to notice him lingering in her periphery. When she did look up, she blinked at him for a very long time, as if she'd gone on a journey and was trying to place him years later. "You mind if I ask you something?" Akihiko said.

"What?" She started a bit. "Me?"

"If you've got a second."

"Got a… oh!" Fuuka seemed to shake herself. She reached up and ducked the screen on her laptop an inch or so, a ceremonial gesture that signaled he had her full attention. "Of course I do," she said. "What do you need, Akihiko-senpai?"

Akihiko tried to figure out the best way to phrase his question. It sounded stupid from all angles. In the end, he decided to just lob it out there as plainly as possible and hope that she caught it. "What do they feel like?"

He heard the faint noises of a passing group of noisy kids outside, and then the lobby fell once again into a dead silence. Fuuka was frozen, eyes were wide and unblinking as she stared at him.

Wait. Had that been weird after all? Akihiko ran the question over in his head again. It seemed pretty straight-forward, but he wasn't known for his communication skills. "Our personas," he said, hoping he wasn't patronizing her by over-explaining. "When you scan them inside Lucia. What do they feel like?"

" _Oh!_ " Fuuka jerked back, seeming to come back to herself. She ducked her gaze, not quite able to look at him, but he could see her face starting to redden. "Y-you meant… um, our personas? In Tartarus?"

"Yeah, of course," he said, kind of confused by the reaction. "What did you think I meant?"

"N-nothing! Nothing. I just… I thought you meant…"

What the hell was she blushing for? For the sixth time that week, Akihiko gave up trying to understand women. "Listen, sorry if it's a strange question, I just thought—"

"N-no, it's not strange at all!" Fuuka's head shot up. "I just… misunderstood you, that's all. Um, I really don't know, Akihiko-senpai. It's kind of hard to explain. Is this for Mitsuru-senpai's research?"

"No, I was just curious. It's okay if you don't want to answer."

"No, wait, hold on." The flush was slow to leave her face, but Fuuka looked more alert now, interested in the subject. She shifted her weight to take him in more directly. "I can sort of describe it, I think, but I can't guarantee it'll make sense. It's not really a feeling that's comparable to things in the real world."

"It's okay. I just wanted a ballpark."

"If I had to describe it…" Fuuka paused, glancing down with a thoughtful frown. She seemed to be carefully considering her words. "I guess it's kind of like… being suspended in clear water, except you can breathe, and it's warm. The voices float by like bubbles."

"Voices?"

"Of the personas," she said. "Everything has its own color and a sensation in there. Even the shadows. Sometimes soft, like velvet, and sometimes really rough like gravel. It all depends."

"What does Polydeuces feel like?"

Fuuka's head tilted as she hesitated again, and he knew why. It wasn't like they were actually _you_ , but it was still an extension of the self, and… well. That was personal. "It's sensations, mostly," she repeated. "I guess you could say that it feels kind of… solid. But bright. Like sunshine shining off metal."

"What about the team? Do we feel the same as our personas?"

"How can I put it." Akihiko watched her fingers twine and untwine as she tried to find the words. He had a feeling that a lot went on in Fuuka's head that made perfect sense to her until she tried to say it out loud. She'd misdirected them a couple of times on an enemy's weakness that way. _Sounded_ like lightning, she'd say, but burned her like fire, and only when she'd seen their attacks bounce off did she realize which was which. "There's a disconnect between the self and the persona," Fuuka said. "They're intertwined, of course, and in one sense there's no beginning or end. But at the same time, there's room for growth. Kind of like a shirt that fits on the shoulders but bags a little at the elbows. I'm sorry, I'm sure there are better ways to describe it. It really is hard to explain. This is the first time I've tried."

"Growth?" Most of what she said went over his head, but that jumped out at him. "You mean us, or the personas?"

"When you're young, you answer to your name before you even know what it means. But one day, you suddenly realize that your name isn't just a sound. Maybe it means 'spring' or 'light' or 'wind'. Maybe it was the name of a cousin, or a family friend. It's something that helps to form the tapestry that describes you. The _meaning_ was always there, but it took you to realize what it truly meant."

"So you're saying that our personas are the parts of us we haven't discovered yet?"

"I guess what I'm saying," Fuuka said, "is that not even our personas can fully describe us, because we're constantly changing. The self changes all the time. Every day, really. Every minute. It's like a tree outside your window. You never actually _see_ it growing, because it's so gradual. But one day you look outside and realize that it's different than it used to be, and right away, the image of the tree in your memory gets updated."

He wondered if she even knew the gravity of what she was saying. She hadn't been in the fight as long as he and Mitsuru had, so maybe this kind of information seemed like a given to her. She certainly wasn't acting like it was a big deal. But personas _changing_. The thought of Polydeuces one day not being Polydeuces, but becoming something that fit Akihiko just as well, left him a little winded.

He stood there unable to move, thoughts ricocheting like bullets. "I'm sorry if this is prying, but can I ask why the sudden interest?" Fuuka said. "Is there something wrong?"

He realized far too belatedly that he'd spaced out staring at her. Annoyed with himself, he blinked himself back to attention. "Of course not. Why would there be something wrong?"

He hadn't meant it to come out so aggressively. He saw Fuuka flinch a bit, dropping her gaze back down to the computer lid as she murmured a fumbling apology.

Akihiko wondered if there was a bigger dick than him in Iwatodai but kind of doubted it. "I'm sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. I won't bother you any more."

"It wasn't a bother," she said, but quietly.

"Thanks for the information. I really do appreciate it."

"It's okay. I'm happy I could help."

He pushed himself off the table, then hesitated again. It really was easy to forget, especially considering the number of times he tuned her out during battle, but there was a lot of pressure put on her every time they went into Tartarus. Everyone else was allowed to rest up, to regroup or rotate out when they got tired. Fuuka had to stay sharp the entire time. It wasn't any different than the pressure on Arisato, but Fuuka was an invisible omnipresence and therefore easier to take for granted.

 _I'm an asshole._ Resigned, Akihiko slid his hands back in his pockets and turned to face her squarely, manning up. "Listen, we don't tell you this often enough, but you're doing a great job. I don't know how often Mitsuru talks to you about it, but you've made battles a lot easier. It used to be pretty dicey whenever we dove in, but it's been a lot safer for everyone since you took over communications. I just wanted to say thank you. I know it's hard."

Fuuka's head shot up again. Her eyes were wide. She searched his face a while longer, fist settling over her collarbone as she read his expression uncertainly.

Then she ducked her head, and he saw her face warming again, growing pink to her ears. "Thank you, Akihiko-senpai," she murmured. She sounded near tears.

Akihiko wondered if he'd made things better or worse. Probably both. Awkwardness was his other natural element alongside Zio. "I'm heading out. I'll see you later."

"All right. Be safe."

"I will. Take it easy."

He went upstairs to change and get his jacket. His mirror watched him the entire time, glinting like Tziah in the corner of his eye.

After he'd gathered up his dorm key and his pocketknife, he turned it around and hid it in his closet, and all in all that was the last time he looked in a mirror for two months.

* * *

.

The air spiraled and yawned with four gaping mouths. When the mouths snapped shut, Yukari dropped like a stone and Mitsuru stumbled, only barely managing to keep her feet. The Mudoon brushed by Akihiko, making his bones shudder, but at the end he was still standing and Arisato was cursing in a way he usually only heard coming out of Shirakawa boulevard.

Fuuka's breathy voice was frantic. _"Somebody help Yukari-chan!"_

"Arisato," Akihiko barked, but her naginata was already slicing a moonlight arc through the Silent Book. Its pages flapped agitatedly but held together.

He couldn't remember if she held life or death or fire or ice in her head and there was no time to ask. "Arisato, what are we supposed to—"

" _Hit it!_ " was the terse response. "Mitsuru-senpai, use inventory, get Yukari on her feet! _Move!_ "

Akihiko moved. The ground smeared like lights through a film of rain, and impact shuddered up his arm so hard his teeth rattled. By the time Akihiko fell back to his line formation, the Silent Book was sagging in midair, pages fluttering. Arisato was there a moment later with a devastating uppercut of steel, and from the corner of Akihiko's eye came a shout of light that he fervently hoped was a resurrection and not a flanking attack.

To his relief, Mitsuru was pulling Yukari to her feet as the flare faded, and with the usual chaotic see-saw nature of battle, the tables were once again turned in their favor. "Yukari, shake it off." Arisato was merciless, readying her own weapon for another attack. "It's weak to pierce – try finishing it off with an arrow."

Yukari was pale and shaky, but she nodded tightly, and in the blink of an eye had her arrow nocked. She waited just long enough for Mitsuru to get clear, then let it fly, sinking the arrow directly into the heart of the pages. The Silent Book finally dissolved, worrying itself back into the darkness that spawned it.

Akihiko had maybe two seconds to think _okay, maybe we sort of got this,_ before the lion head on the Mach Wheel roared in his left ear and sent him stumbling. "Mitsuru-senpai, stand by," Arisato hollered. "Akihiko, _fly!_ "

Akihiko flicked his blade-tipped glove off in a single, savage motion of his wrist, letting it clatter to the ground. He had his evoker in his hand and the barrel between his eyes inside a breath. _Let me out,_ Polydeuces said, from somewhere in the shadows of Akihiko's own light. _Show them what it truly means to fly._

 _Bring it,_ Akihiko thought, and pulled the trigger. The blast that tore through his head momentarily blinded him, but by then he was swept up into the gathering storm. The ceiling split and thunder broke and the world undulated with massive, echoing, terrifying sound. Arisato yelled, " _Again!_ " and Akihiko summoned again without cooling down, yanking more power out of his heart, dragging down the heavens until they smashed into the earth.

He half-expected her to yell _again,_ but there was silence in between the fading rumbles. When the light cleared, the shadow was gone and the hallway was clear, and once again the feeling of flight slipped away from him, leaving him shaking and nauseated on the ground.

Akihiko resolutely locked his knees, gripping his Evoker, trying to get a grip before anyone saw him. "Oh my gosh," Yukari moaned, sagging against a nearby pillar. "That was too close. That was _way_ too close."

"I thought it went well." In contrast to the thunderous drill sergeant voice she used in battle, Arisato's tone was musical with her usual bizarre good-humor. She poked at the greasy mess the shadows had left behind, brightening. "Hey, look, they left us presents!"

" _Presents?_ " Yukari looked horrified. "You're _happy_ about this?"

"Sure! Look." Arisato rummaged a moment longer, then triumphantly held up a bright blue stone. "Turquoise! Do you have any idea how long I've been searching for this? This is the best day of my life!"

"Oh my god," Yukari said, and Junpei's raucous laughter broke through Lucia's frequency overtop Fuuka's fretful _Junpei-kun, please, I can't hear._ "You need to get a hobby," Yukari said. "I'm serious. Don't you ever get scared at all?"

"Not with you all here to back me up," Arisato said. "Fuuka? How are we doing up here?"

" _As far as I can – Junpei-kun,_ please _– you have two more floors to go before a checkpoint. If you're feeling tired, I really don't think you should push it. There's something strong up there."_

Junpei's cheerful voice once again came soaring overtop. _"Heyyy, if you're feeling burnt out, how 'bout you come on down and switch up with me? Maybe I should take a turn being the leader, show 'em how it's really done."_

"Nobody here needs a tutorial on how to trip on their own blades," Arisato said, just as cheerfully, jogging off to the other end of the room to look through the items the Silent Book had left behind. "But thanks for the offer. We'll call you."

His head felt… Akihiko continued to stand there in Arisato's wake, fists loose, knees still locked. He tentatively disrupted his balance to reach up, digging his knuckles against his forehead a minute, trying to ground himself. His stomach was cavernously empty, coiling in on itself with a rumble that shook his bones like the Mudoon.

"Akihiko-senpai?"

"Huh?" he grunted.

There was a touch on his arm. He opened his eyes to see Yukari standing in front of him, eyes narrow at she studied him. Her hair was disheveled in a way he knew would mortally embarrass her if she was aware of it. "You don't look so great," Yukari said. "Are you okay? I didn't see you take a hit."

His skin felt fuzzy, as though someone was rubbing it with wool. Puzzled, he spread his stance a little bit, trying to figure out where the disorientation was coming from.

"Um, yeah, okay," Yukari said. "Mitsuru-senpai?"

Mitsuru was in front of him a second later. In full view of Yukari, she pressed the back of his hand against his forehead, then lifted his chin, making him look into her eyes. He felt the vague snap of power as Penthesilea scanned him. " _Mitsuru-senpai?_ " Fuuka's ghostly voice came back again. " _Is there a problem?_ "

"Just a moment," Mitsuru said. She moved her hand, running a thumb along the bandage over Akihiko's temple, and Akihiko automatically leaned into the grounding pressure. "Sit," Mitsuru ordered, displeased, and Akihiko folded his legs, letting her guide him to the floor.

He was vaguely aware of the sudden silence in the hall, but for the moment his entire world was made up of Mitsuru as she knelt before him, grim and focused in the searing brilliance of Tziah's backlights. She sorted through her inventory and emerged with a gem, which she held against his forehead with a firm palm.

Akihiko felt the cleansing snap of a Patra as it dissolved into his skin, and with sudden, intense, humiliating clarity he realized he was on his ass on the floor and pretty much everyone who mattered in his life could see him. "Sorry," he said. "I got distracted."

"Are you all right?" Yukari looked alarmed. She'd retrieved her evoker as though to cast, but it hung loosely at her side as she looked between him and Mitsuru. "What happened?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry. I think I just spaced out."

"You weren't responding." Mitsuru wasn't fooled, regarding him with a flat gaze as she closed her satchel. "If you were feeling under the weather, it's your responsibility to let her know if you'll be a liability in battle."

"I'm _not_ ," he snapped, brushing her off and climbing to his feet. He still felt unsteady, but the light-headedness was receding. He holstered his Evoker, determined not to be embarrassed by his lapse. The Dark Hour played fast and screwy with perception. It was just a matter of conquering it. "Let's get going."

"Everything all right over here?" Arisato was bounding back over, stuffing whatever it was she'd found into her pocket. Despite her friendly tone, he saw her glance between them shrewdly, picking up the undertones. "Are we ready to go?"

"I'm fine," Akihiko said before Mitsuru could respond. "Just lost my focus for a second. I'm good to go."

"Fuuka?" Arisato's attention was up at the ceiling again. It was a superfluous gesture seeing as Fuuka's presence was wrapped around them like a bubble, but they all did it. "Two more floors, right? Until the next boss?"

" _Hold on, let me make sure."_

They all waited through the subsequent pause, hearing a faint whir like a processor. _"Sorry, I really can't get a good read yet,"_ Fuuka said at last. _"I'm almost positive, but if you go up a little higher I might be able to tell you a little more."_

"No problem. We're on our way," Arisato said. She casually tossed her naginata up on her shoulder and bounded off in the direction of the staircase. Akihiko hated her a bit for the ease of the action. "Let's go. Just a bit further and we can all take a breather."

"That's what you said three floors ago," Yukari muttered, but followed reluctantly, testing the tautness of her bow string as she moved.

Akihiko let out a slow breath before noticing Mitsuru was watching him. Nettled, he met her gaze and raised an eyebrow. "Don't forget your glove," Mitsuru merely said, ignoring the challenge, and turned her back on him, following Yukari at a more sedate pace.

Akihiko's breath rocked out between his teeth. He stooped and swiped his glove off the floor, jamming it on and adjusting the straps.

They made it up to the checkpoint with little difficulty, ducking out only when Fuuka reissued the warning. Arisato made a point of rummaging through the remains of the shadows every time, occasionally making pleased noises as she shoved whatever it was she was finding into her satchel. Akihiko had never seen what the point was of collecting the junk the shadows left behind, but Arisato seemed to know exactly what she was looking for, even if the results were sometimes stomach-churning: hanks of hair and rusty pieces of metal, keys and sludge and pointy ends that looked sharp enough to cut through thought.

They took as much as they could carry and dragged it back to the checkpoint. Reality went up in a reverse waterfall of green, and then forces Akihiko didn't want to think about too hard vacuumed them back down to the first floor. "Five minutes," Arisato called, already trotting towards her usual corner.

Akihiko ran his hand through his hair, massaging out the sweat, then unstrapped his other glove to give the skin underneath a chance to breathe. He noticed his hands shaking when he lowered them and spent a few seconds flexing and unflexing them, trying to get them to relax. To his displeasure the quivering only intensified, creeping up his wrists and elbows and down his back as his sweat continued to cool.

Mitsuru arranged her skirt and sank down on the second stair, taking out her handkerchief and patting the back of her neck. There was an increasing pressure on Akihiko's shoulders that was pressing him towards the floor, and abruptly he couldn't remember which way was up.

Alarmed by his sudden weakness, Akihiko caught himself on the railing and eased himself down on the stair beside her. Mitsuru finished dabbing her hairline, then neatly refolded her handkerchief and slid it back into her boot. "Are you all right?" she asked, quietly enough as to not be overheard by the others.

He didn't trust himself to answer. He leaned against the rails of the banister and closed his eyes. His skin prickled with cold, making nausea roil in his stomach.

Mitsuru touched the back of her hand to his forehead. Akihiko kept his eyes closed, not bothering to move away. "I'm okay."

"You're exhausted and unwell." Mitsuru kept her voice low. It sounded flat, but he heard the concern in the clipped tone. "It isn't good for you to be inside Tartarus when you're this depleted. You know better."

"Just gimme a second." Now that he wasn't upright, his equilibrium was starting to return. When he opened his eyes, the lobby mercifully stayed level.

 _What the hell is this._ He'd eaten a good breakfast – good enough that he'd had to scale back dinner to compensate. He'd done nothing differently today than he'd been doing two weeks ago.

He kept his temple against the rail of the stairs, working to regain his focus, listening to Yukari and Junpei bicker in the background. Arisato soon re-emerged from absolutely nowhere, looking satisfied. With the exception of a tear in her sock and a smear of something unidentifiable on her shirt, she looked like she was spending a pleasant day shopping rather than blowing personalities from her brain. "All right," she announced, grabbing her naginata from where it leaned against the side of the staircase. She cast her eye over the group. "Ken, you're up. Aigis, you too. And Shinjiro-senpai."

"Aw, c'mon, no fair," Junpei complained loudly, currently sprawled on the floor atop his own jacket. "It's been ages since I've been up."

"It has also been 'ages' since I have been at her side in battle," Aigis said, with monotone brutality. "We must all take turns. It is part of becoming a responsible and mature adult, which you have yet to learn."

"Dude, you just gonna let a robot school me?" Junpei demanded.

"You heard her," Arisato said. "We all have to learn to be responsible and mature adults."

"Yeah, okay, and remind me what mature and responsible adult it was that threw her controller at my head yesterday when I kicked her ass at Dead or Alive?"

Akihiko had already worked himself upwards the moment she'd come back out, beginning to strap his gloves back on. Only then did he realize that she hadn't actually said his name. "Wait," he said. "What about…"

Arisato glanced over at him as she headed for the gate. "Take a breather. I think it's better to swap out the team at this point so nobody gets too tired. The full moon is tomorrow and I need everybody sharp."

Take a breather? Swap out the team? She acted like she'd been out sightseeing while the rest of them paddled through hell in her place. How was it that she managed to keep her feet when the rest of them had to rotate?

Shinjiro stirred, hands still deep in his pockets as he ambled over. Ken tossed his spear up over his shoulder and followed, Aigis not far behind. Arisato set the coordinates, looking up expectantly when Ken asked her a question, and halfway through her response they'd all vanished again into the green.

He hadn't realized he was still standing until Mitsuru said, "Sit down, Akihiko."

"What the hell?" He was having trouble wrapping his brain around the fact that he was here and Arisato was up there. "Since when am I not anchoring?"

Yukari dislodged the rest of her battle gear with a sigh, slumping to the ground by them and folding her arms atop the closest stair to settle her head atop them. "Thank god," she moaned. "If I never have to climb another step that would be _just_ fine with me."

"You acquitted yourself admirably tonight," Mitsuru told her, surrendering a faint smile. "You deserve a rest. But I doubt Arisato will let you retire so easily."

"I don't know how she shook off that Silent Book attack so easily. Mudoons scare me to death. _Literally,_ " Yukari said. "Doesn't it seem like there's more of them lately? It's like the place can sense what scares us."

"It wouldn't surprise me if it had that capability, but we mustn't get ahead of ourselves," Mitsuru said. "We'll know more when we take some of these items back to the lab. No doubt they will provide valuable research material."

… Could anyone up there even debuff? Aigis had buffs, but they were defensive. Nothing that could diminish an enemy. "Akihiko, sit down," Mitsuru said. "Rest. She's taken you out of rotation before."

"Only when I'm injured or sick," Akihiko muttered, frustrated. "She's never just taken me out for no reason."

"Well, no, but remember, we have more people now." Yukari propped her elbow on the bottom stair and set her chin in her palm instead. "She doesn't have to lean on everybody so hard now. She's got Shinjiro-senpai now to help take some of the stress off you. Me? I'm _grateful_ I don't have to go up every time anymore."

"It has been convenient having a bigger number to work with," Mitsuru said. "And as to their being 'no reason', Akihiko, I can think of several. You know full well it isn't a slight."

"Yeah, dude, seriously," Junpei suddenly piped up. Until now Akihiko had assumed he'd been sulking, but when he looked over, Junpei was on his stomach, leafing through what looked like an oversized textbook. "I mean, look at me. Most badass warrior on the team, and she leaves me back here all the time. And you know _nobody_ here handles swords like I do."

"Hmm." Mitsuru's expression was suspiciously neutral, her eyes innocent. "Perhaps we should have a bout sometime and test your theory, Iori. It might prove illuminating."

"Ah." Junpei's face lost a little color. "Wh-what I meant to say was, nobody can swing a _big_ sword like I can. But when it comes to tearin' things up, of course you're boss, Mitsuru-senpai. No question."

"What are you looking at, anyway?" Yukari worked her head off her hand and craned her neck to look. "I _know_ you're not doing homework."

"Who says? I'm as studious as the next guy."

"Oh my god, is that an artbook?" Yukari craned her neck further, jaw dropping. "Oh my god, it is. You're seriously looking through an _artbook?_ Did we lose the real Junpei in Tartarus?"

"Hey, I can be an intellectual," Junpei said defensively, forearm curling a little as though to shield the pages from her judgment. "Maybe I'm just developing an interest in the finer stuff. Not like _you'd_ know anything 'bout being cultured."

"I still can't believe she left me behind," Akihiko muttered, barely listening. He vaguely heard Mitsuru say his name, but he was preoccupied. He took a neurotic tour around the lobby, shaking the stiffness out of his wrists, glancing back at the gate to see if she'd appear, but the green stayed quiet and the Dark Hour continued to crawl by without her.

 _Shit._ Come to think of it, he'd forfeited distance on his second run today because he'd assumed he was going to need energy to expend at Tartarus. Everyone else always brought things to do while they waited in the lobby, but this was the first time Akihiko was conscious enough to actually be aware and resentful of the passage of time. How did the others stand it, knowing a major battle was going on and not being there to throw in their weight?

Too wound-up to talk and too frustrated to turn it over in his head any longer, he found an unoccupied corner of the room and practiced footwork drills. Koromaru wandered over to sniff at him, then sat on his haunches and monitored him, head cocked. "Doesn't he ever run out of gas?" Akihiko heard Yukari mutter.

"Leave him be." Mitsuru's voice was also quiet, but he knew her well enough to hear the curt note of irritation. "If this is what he needs to do to relax, then so be it."

He drilled until he was soaked through, then progressed to shadow boxing just to keep himself moving. The lobby maintained its excruciating inactivity, punctuated by Yukari's occasional yawns and the subtle flipping of pages as Junpei leafed through his book.

He was going for an uppercut when the previous weakness returned in a rush. He managed to get his back against a wall before he hit the floor, settling his forehead on his upraised knees, gulping down air as his empty stomach churned.

Koromaru finally came forward, licking the sweat off Akihiko's temple. "S'okay," Akihiko panted, voice blurring over the words. "S'okay, boy."

It wasn't, though.

* * *

 _Thank you to my reviewers KatoriAeku, Confuzed-Anime-Fan, and Ikaros Light. Your feedback makes me fly._


	8. Girl

**Chapter 8 - Girl**

* * *

 _Renewed trigger warnings for eating disorders, canon-typical violence, and minor references to self-harm._

 _Some dialogue lifted from the in-game hospital scene.  
_

* * *

 _._

He hadn't particularly felt the need to let people know how pathetic he still was at seventeen, so that first night Shinjiro had come back to the dorm, Akihiko had gone ahead and locked himself inside his own room to cry into his pillow like the four year-old he actually was. It'd felt like something had been crushing the wind out of him for two years and he'd needed to re-teach his lungs how to inflate. _It's over._ He'd turned the pillow over to be equally gross on the other side of it. _Shinji's safe. I can stop looking. It's over._

Akihiko had some robust philosophies on pain. He'd overheard criticism from surrounding adults for his dry-eyed composure at Miki's wake, but other issues had been more pressing and Akihiko had been trained to fight one opponent at a time. Through the entire service he'd kept imagining her straining at his hand, trying to yank him back towards the burned-out corpse of the orphanage the way she always did when they'd visited the park and she'd realized she'd forgotten her stuffed bunny. The firefighters had yet to gut the innards of the building pending investigation. Whatever hadn't already been charred or waterlogged by the hoses might still be there in the rubble. The least he could do was wiggle out of this bullshit and rescue her stuff for her so it her bunny wouldn't feel lonely in the rain.

So he'd snuck out of his emergency foster assignment that night and had hitchhiked back to the site, armed with his pocket knife and a flashlight he'd stolen from his host's house. He'd ducked under the police tape and had proceeded to spend three hours sifting through the wreckage as a typhoon chewed and snarled its way across the island.

Somewhere between slipping through a thicket of broken struts and gashing his temple open on some metal siding, reality had hit him with equally concussive force. Miki's things were gone forever and he had nothing to remember her by, at all, and if this same fucking typhoon had rolled through the area even just slightly earlier that week, there would have been no fire and Miki would still be here to complain about her bunny getting wet.

He didn't remember screaming, but apparently that's how they'd found him. He'd screamed and screamed until the medical technicians had finally sedated him, and only when he'd come to himself a week later, lungs fogged from pneumonia and face bandaged from cheek to forehead, did he finally understand what it was that'd terrified him at the funeral. Grief was the monster painstakingly sharpening its claws in the dark and distractions were the things that kept it safely on the other side of the gate. As long as Akihiko could distract himself with more pressing business, the gate stayed closed.

So it probably said something unflattering about him that he was actually really looking forward to September's full-moon encounter, but Akihiko was a veteran of dealing with things that sucked. Pain was pain. If you got a chance to _choose_ the pain _–_ to roll with the more immediate blows and leave the deeper, more ruinous pain on the other side of the gate – you could space it all out so it didn't knock you over.

He could feel that philosophy in play as the others steadily fell into individual baskets of nerves around him. The moon was full and Junpei was missing. Fuuka couldn't precisely pinpoint either his or the Shadow's location. The signals picked up by Mitsuru's equipment were too faint to be useful, and while the parameters of the Dark Hour were pretty vague, it was obvious they were losing time to all the setbacks.

Akihiko let Mitsuru spearhead the pep talks, figuring it'd be better for morale if the juniors couldn't see how inappropriately amped he was over it all. A handicap just made the victory sweeter in the end. He rocked from foot to foot as Fuuka scanned the whole of Iwatodai for the ninth time, continuously shaking out the stiffness in his wrists, and made sure he was the first out the door when she finally cried out in triumph. "For god's sake, settle down," Mitsuru muttered to him, quiet but exasperated as they bypassed a pile of fallen fliers. "And stop smiling."

"Huh? I'm not."

"Yes you are. Stop it. You'll unsettle them."

He stood by in the garish puddles of blood in the town's center, trying to school his features into Serious Business as Fuuka hemmed and hawed inside Lucia's echoing shell. It didn't help. Having Shinjiro at his side again for the first time in two years – feeling that secondhand rushas Polydeuces and Castor egged each other on through the aether that connected them – was lighting him up more than a Tarukaja. By the time Fuuka finally located the Shadow _right under their feet,_ Akihiko was ready to tear up the concrete to get to it.

Arisato made short work of the roster. Cables meant Zio, which meant Akihiko was an automatic invite. Yukari hard-passed due to her elemental weakness, which left Ken to heal and someone else to anchor while Akihiko took up the task of damage output.

Pleased with the general state of things, Akihiko was just strapping up for a full-out offensive when he heard Arisato pluck Shinjiro further down in the line-up. Surprised, jerked his head up in time to see Shinjiro shift his weight uncomfortably. "Been a while," Shinjiro said simply.

"You just fought in Tartarus two days ago."

"Grunt shit. Not bosses."

"It's the same thing. Just a bigger moon." Arisato's forehead crinkled with amusement. "I think you'll manage."

"I probably won't even remember which way to shoot."

"I hear dementia is a common occurrence in the elderly. Don't worry, we'll bring the walker down in case you throw your back out or break a hip. Just try not to do it while I'm smushing your enemy for you."

 _Holy shit._ Akihiko nearly dropped his glove, tensing to break up the inevitable altercation. To his astonishment Shinjiro only laughed – unexpected and rough, like an old engine turning over. "Gotta lot of mouth for someone who bit the dust tripping over a Maya two days ago."

"Stop living in the past – it doesn't deserve you. The present is much nicer."

"Not from where I'm standing."

"Gawd, would you two stop flirting already?" Yukari groaned. "This eyesore moon's giving me a migraine. Will someone please get in there and exterminate that thing so we can go home?"

"They're not flirting," Akihiko snapped, rattled by the unprecedented display. Why hadn't Arisato made that big a deal about selecting him? The battle was just as risky for the rest of them. "Come on, let's get going. We don't have all night."

"Give me two minutes." Arisato was already jogging over to the other side of the fountain, fixated on something only she could see. A moment later she disappeared into the alley, leaving behind a vague flicker of blue that faded quickly from his periphery.

Akihiko stared at Shinjiro until Shinjiro caught him doing it. He looked down quickly and busied himself in last-minute preparations, blindly adjusting his gloves' straps as his neck burned. Arisato couldn't be any clearer about her intended battle strategy if she'd chiseled it in stone. Shinjiro was by far the least versatile member on the team attack-wise, but that didn't matter with proper support. With Ken to heal and Arisato to handle the spellwork, Akihiko was almost certainly being brought along to draw the hits and meat-shield Shinjiro while Ken healed the damage Shinjiro did to himself with each cast.

He could tell from the look in Mitsuru's eyes that she'd figured it out too and wasn't particularly excited about it. She ended up snagging his elbow just before the strike team headed into the club, pressing a Patra gem into his hand. "Be careful," she murmured, pitching it for his ears alone. "This full-moon has ushered in too many unpleasant surprises already, and we don't know what awaits us on the other side."

"No problem," he said, not thrilled about the extra weight but taking it anyway to soothe her nerves. "Hey, wanna race? Us beating the shadow versus you finding Junpei. Loser buys the dorm dinner."

"A portion of my monthly stipend is allocated for communal kitchen supplies, so that would make me the perennial 'loser' regardless. Give me your arm."

He submitted with strained patience as she wrapped one of her embroidered handkerchiefs around his wrist. The tingle that shot up his arm was reminiscent of a spirit boost, which was likewise a nice gesture that was probably not all that helpful in the grand scheme of things. "This isn't going to be a big deal," he said. "If anything, I'm more worried about you dying of boredom out here."

He did spot her suppressing a smile at this, but her tone remained crisp. "You've been tiring frequently in Tartarus and the team is more isolated than usual for this fight. It will be difficult to extract you if you're taken off your feet, so save the heroics and handle yourself with care."

 _Extract_ him? Jaw dropping, Akihiko was fully prepared to hand her a slice of his opinion on that when Shinjiro's voice bounced from the back of the club. " _Shake the lead out, asshole, we don't got all night._ "

Mitsuru's lips were carefully pursed. "Stop smiling, you'll unsettle them," Akihiko sniped at her, then hurried in after them before she could return the volley.

He had to dodge a smattering of coffins lined up around the bar, navigating mostly by instinct through the gloom as he made his way to the back. With Ken in the lead clearing low-hanging cobwebs with his spear, they wormed themselves down into the maze of pipes and wires, grinding static between their teeth as they jammed themselves into first the narrow crawlspace and then into the wider, gloomier antechambers underneath the heart of the downtown businesses.

Akihiko wasn't claustrophobic as a general rule, but the charred walls and the stink of burnt insulation made his gut quake unexpectedly as they rounded the next corner. Annoyed, he covered his lapse by deliberately stumbling over a chunk of debris, giving him the excuse to grab the wall for support while he realigned the baggage in his head. His plan promptly backfired when his glove came away smeared with ash, and very suddenly Akihiko forgot where he was.

He slowed to a halt as their combined echoes began to ricochet in his head, putting his ash-smudged glove to his forehead. He felt his stomach turn again, but when he tried to swallow down his gorge he realize his mouth had gone dry. _Not now._ Police tape and typhoons. Bears and a hair ribbons and charred—

Shinjiro seized the back of Akihiko's neck like he was a drowning dog and yanked him out of his spiral. " _Pull it together_ ," Shinjiro hissed. He was breathing hard, and only belatedly did Akihiko realize he'd been ricocheting his anxiety all over their link. "Can't you go two seconds these days without wigging out?"

"Get off me." Akihiko shrugged out of it and focused on breathing for a minute, but the confusion was gone, leaving only a fading tremor in his knees. Ken and Arisato were up ahead, conferring with each other in low tones over which direction to take. Broken cobwebs trailed from the tip of Ken's spear like a spectral banner. "Just go on ahead. I'll catch up."

Shinjiro pushed him against the soot-stained wall. It said something that Akihiko's first thought was _thanks for the extra laundry duty, asshole,_ except there were other things to worry about and also laundry duty was a given from the start. If they all had half a collective brain, they'd fight in actual battle gear and leave their Gekkoukan uniforms on their hangers rather than staying up until ass o'clock jockeying for a turn with the dorm's washer unit. "Just go back," Shinjiro said, low-tone. "Something's off with you and we don't have time to let you figure it out right now. Koromaru small, he won't have a problem down here."

"I don't have a – look, shut up," Akihiko said. "I just got turned around for a second. If you want someone to go back so bad, you swap out. It's not like you wanted to be here anyway."

"Nobody'll come after you for it, Aki."

 _Except you._ Except it wasn't okay to say that kind of thing yet, with things still new and raw and cobbled together from past scraps.

Before Akihiko could make things worse, Arisato's whisper came from the darkness up ahead. "Did you two find something?"

"We're coming," Akihiko called back quietly. He shoved Shinjiro's arm away and jogged quickly ahead before Shinjiro could retaliate, sweeping chunks of insulation aside with his foot to avoid tripping over them later.

"Ken thinks it's in there," Arisato told him as he took a knee beside her, fumbling for his own lighter to help illuminate the space. Her hair was brilliant in the splash of illumination, bobby pins gleaming like blades. "Are you ready? I don't think we'll be able to turn around once we're in there."

"Let's just get it done. We've got unfinished business up top."

Akihiko caught a flash of a grimace at this – a twist of her lips that was gone just as quickly. "At least _this_ problem can be taken care of with fists," Arisato said wryly.

"The other one can too," he reminded her, and received an unexpected brilliant grin in response. "He can't outrun the both of us. Don't worry about it now. We'll knock down that domino when we finish tackling this one."

"I can't see anything." Ken was squinting up ahead doubtfully, grip blanched around the haft of his spear. "It's… it's almost as if it's waiting for us to make the first—"

A tri-toned shriek split the air. An instant later the chambers flooded with shrill, exobiological light, and the ocean rumble of Polydeuces' voice woke Akihiko's blood in tandem. "Hold that thought," Arisato said merrily, and Akihiko stood, brushed off his knees, and made a quick detour through hell.

* * *

.

It was three-quarters of the way through the battle and Akihiko thought that maybe they were doing it wrong. Their inventory had been scattered across the floor and Ken's Evoker had gotten kicked away during the scuffle; currently Arisato was pinned under a disembodied cable that kept squirming with weak little jolts of electricity every time Ken jabbed at it, and Fuuka's frantic instructions were getting lost under the snap of static and Arisato's bawling laughter. "Would you guys pick another time to screw around?" Akihiko barked, blocking a jab for his face and ducking under the next cable.

" _Hit it,_ " Arisato gasped helplessly. There were tears of merriment streaming down her face as she flapped a hand weakly in his direction. " _Just hit it, it's almost dead, just hit it_."

Akihiko dodged a third swipe by running up a pile of rubble, then nearly plunged straight into it when the summit of it unexpectedly caved, sending chunks of concrete tumbling onto the scorched floor. The Shadow's screams were ceaseless, wrenching sounds of anguish pulled deep from inside the monstrous roiling core of it, increasing with every blow it took. As committed as Akihiko was to dispatching the threat, he was human enough to feel a twinge of pity for an opponent in that much pain. "Shinji!" he called, ducking a swing and using the slope of the rubble to get a running start past the rest. "You up for finishing it off with a Nail-Hammer Formation?"

The cacophony in the room crested again as Castor exploded into the mire of wires, landing a hit so concussive Akihiko felt a stab of pain in both eardrums. "— _and your stupid-ass names_ —" was all Akihiko was able to catch before Shinjiro was smacked off his feet by a retaliatory cable, sending up a flurry of dust and curses Ken probably shouldn't be exposed to.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Akihiko was a little light-headed but omnipresently so, the way he always felt when he rewatched an action movie and knew in advance how the world would be saved. The Shadow was on its last legs and he'd done enough support work tonight to have earned a little showboating. "You ready?"

"Aki, damn it, would you be serious for two—"

" _Go!_ " He took off running, shoes flinging gravel behind him. He heard Shinjiro spit out another flurry of curses behind him, but he knew without looking that Shinjiro was already struggling to his feet, angling the Evoker towards his head. The Shadow turned its eyeless gaze towards Akihiko slowly, but the cables in contrast reacted with blinding speed; Akihiko absorbed a hit from one and allowed the second to trip him, rolling forward under the thicket of wires.

"Aki, _right!_ " he heard Shinjiro bellow, and he jerked aside without question, feeling the searing snap of a cable as it cracked down where his head had been milliseconds earlier.

 _Hell yes._ He felt like laughing but settled for a ferocious grin, scrambling back up with a dry mouth and ringing ears. _Yes yes yes._ "You ready?" he yelled.

" _Get the fuck on with it!"_

He felt the storm rise in him, bringing the tang of salt in the back of his throat. He took a chance and slid again, skidding directly under the pulsating mass of the Shadow and out the other side.

He heard Fuuka's horrified inhalation somewhere above him and something sharper from Mitsuru, but he couldn't spare either of them any more focus. He regained his feet amidst the writhing cables and used a jut of pipe jammed into the creature's side to swing himself up. " _Akihiko-senpai,_ " Fuuka gasped. " _It's dangerous to get that close even with a Zio affinity, you can't—_ "

 _Watch me._ Holding on with one hand, Akihiko jammed the Evoker against his temple and roared, " _Rakunda!_ "

It'd been a while and he was rusty, but he was close enough that accuracy didn't matter. The debuff hit right where he wanted it to: dead center on the creature's flank, concentrated enough that it bloomed as a target rather than a blanket spell. He felt the Shadow lurch to the side; Akihiko made to jam his Evoker in its holster and unceremoniously missed, hearing it clatter to the floor and – _screw it._ He could roll with it. He swung his full weight down on the pipe and dragged the Shadow down with him; the instant he heard Shinjiro bellow, he let go and tumbled to the floor, scrabbling for his Evoker in transit. His fingertips brushed off it and managed to snatch it by some minor miracle. The battle devolved into a blur of fast reflexes and dumb luck as the Shadow screamed and thrashed above him, slapping the ground around him with lethal voltage.

His nose was stinging with the stench of singed hair. Akihiko finally managed to claw his way out of reach, only to be nearly dropped again when one of the cables kicked a chunk of debris across his cheek. He was bruised and exhausted and kind of reeling and it felt _good,_ it felt so damned good it was probably criminal.

He gained his feet and closed the distance again at a run, hurdling over the cables that swung out to meet him, and aimed the next Rakunda directly into the thick of the red veins that covered the Shadow's torso. He vaguely heard Shinjiro bitching something at him through the wall of frenzied screams, but it didn't matter because Shinjiro as always was a reliable half step behind him, sending Castor in to land a direct hit on the weakened spot. _Nail, hammer._ Laughter was threatening to knock him off balance. He pressed in another laser-pointed Rakunda, heard a hit connect seconds after he moved away, and again the cables were sent into a frenzy. _Nail, hammer. Nail._

Too close-quartered to avoid it, Akihiko emptied his lungs in time to absorb a hit to his stomach. He dropped to a knee and felt gravel abrade the skin under his trousers as he skidded, yanking his Evoker up between his eyes to send a quick Diarama Shinjiro's way. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Arisato finally fight her way from the tangle of cables; Shinjiro carelessly let his Evoker clatter to the floor as he picked his hammer up from the floor, and now his gaze met Akihiko's across the space, bright with lightning. "All right, let's kick some ass."

"You ready?" Akihiko called breathlessly to Arisato.

Her face was still tear-streaked and crimson with laughter, but her response was a boom. " _All in!_ "

She'd always been patient with stupid questions.

* * *

.

He was rattling with stolen energy by the time the Shadow went down for the last time, savoring the last crackle of static between his teeth before letting it dissipate down through his toes. The battle had left an ocean of superheated scraps of metal and clouds of ash that made him feel like he was breathing in confetti, but they'd done it. They'd done it.

Mitsuru expressed her displeasure with a frosty silence that was almost louder than Fuuka's censure, but all in all the late start and the still-unresolved issue of Junpei's truancy took precedence. Arisato wasted no time tasking them with collecting the spilled inventory and splitting up to comb the rest of the immediate tunnels.

Akihiko waited until Ken's attention was elsewhere before nabbing Shinjiro's shoulder, steering him behind a tangle of insulation. "Shit, Aki, get a job," Shinjiro groused, sounding utterly exasperated as Akihiko pushed him down to sit atop a pile of rubble. Despite the attitude, Akihiko could feel him shaking underneath his coat. "Swear I'm gonna bleed to death with all this henpecking."

"You're one to talk." Akihiko's fingertips were still tingling as he fished for his Evoker. It'd been dented with the impact to the cement during the fight, but nothing rattled when he shook it experimentally by his ear. "You wouldn't have gotten even half of that damage you did if you'd stopped jumping in front of me every two seconds. I can take a hit, you know."

"Yeah? With what?"

What? Not sure what they were arguing, Akihiko ignored him and fished for his wrist. Zios packaged themselves like lightning on the outside, but thermodynamic law tended to get screwy in the Dark Hour just like everything else. He could feel static rummaging around under Shinjiro's skin like a mouse scrambling to exit a maze.

He spent a quick minute soaking up the scraps, expertly collecting each jolt with his fingertips, guiding them into the well that housed his spirit. When Shinjiro's shaking had eased and his skin felt cooler under Akihiko's grip, Akihiko adjusted his hold and lifted his Evoker with his other hand, firing a quick shot between his eyes.

He hadn't let enough time pass between chores. The Diarama accidentally slipped from him with a double-edged jolt, and Shinjiro flinched with a curse. "Sorry," Akihiko said.

"S'all right." Shinjiro's breathing was a little unsteady. He looked up into the gloom of the ceiling as if he could see out the other side of its shadows, and the look on his face then was so unexpectedly vulnerable and raw that Akihiko cast another Diarama to cover his reaction to it. "Wonder how much time we got left," Shinjiro said.

"Dunno." Akihiko blinked spots from his eyes and holstered his Evoker. "Arisato seems to think we're doing all right."

"Girl up there sounds like a fistful of live wires."

"Huh?" Oh. "Don't worry, she always sounds like that."

"Don't know why she's in a tear. We already beat the damn thing."

 _Because she's running out of time to track down Junpei._ Honestly Akihiko was pretty low on damns to give at this point. He'd understand if Junpei lost track of time and had gotten stuck on a dead train as the clock switched over, but Hermes gave Junpei a pretty considerable speed boost. He could've at least tried to book it over on foot once he heard all the commotion. "Feel okay?" he asked, spotting Shinjiro gathering his weight to stand. "You need another?"

"Worry about yourself." Shinjiro gave himself away with a grunt as he regained his feet, but he went no further, spending an extra minute cracking his neck and shaking out his shoulders. "Where's Amada? He all right?"

"What? You saw him earlier. He's fine."

"Where is he?"

Akihiko squashed his impatience with some empathy. Shinjiro was a dick but he'd earned this particular neurosis. He leaned his head back to peer around the barrier of insulation, blinking to readjust his eyes to the gloom on the other side of the room. Arisato was swarming over the smeared, discarded scraps of the Shadow in her usual salvage effort. Ken in the meantime had regressed to nannying, trying and failing to cast Diarama on Arisato's bleeding leg while she tossed things over her shoulder into a growing pile. When he finally lost his patience and yelled at her, she bounced down off the rubble to accept the medical attention with a merry look in her eye, forestalling further lecture by dropping a kiss on his cheek. Ken was left red-faced and stammering as Arisato bounced back up the rubble. "Lady-killing," Akihiko reported.

Shinjiro grunted. "Good for him."

Fuuka's voice came suddenly through the concrete, filtered through a sea of settling dust. _"Sorry, but I think we've got a problem."_

* * *

 _._

So it turned out Junpei had been secretly meeting up with a girl named Chidori for the past several weeks, which meant Akihiko had been half-right. Yukari had been marveling over Junpei's sudden interest in fine arts and hyper-focus during Tartarus runs, but Akihiko was enough a high school veteran to know that a turn-around that swift was usually the result of a girl. Since Junpei couldn't do anything by halves, the girl he turned out to be chasing was an enemy agent of a sophisticated terror organization dedicated to obstructing SEES' mission objectives, and the sweet nothings he'd been whispering in her ear had been every single one of their closely-guarded secrets.

Akihiko found himself stuck in a really weird quandary of needing to rescue someone he genuinely intended to kill. He was so angry he couldn't even move to help as Junpei turned the tables and captured her, prompting screams of rage and anguish as Chidori's Evoker was taken from her. Mostly he was thinking something along the line of _I have to talk to Mitsuru_ and the other part of him was thinking about dragging Junpei up to Tziah to throw him out the 154th story window. "Stupei sure knows how to pick them," he heard Yukari mutter, but she sounded agitated, fussing with her Evoker as though she'd been the one robbed of her persona.

Knowing he'd hit his limits, Akihiko let Mitsuru take charge, throwing his weight into helping her transport Chidori to the hospital. What unfolded was a procedural nightmare that ended up keeping them both there well into the early pre-dawn hours. Chidori had no emergency contacts and no medical history. She was severely dehydrated and malnourished, and while both of those conditions could be fixed with a drip, the hospital was leery of prescribing medications without a medical dossier.

Around the fifth time they were getting grilled over the location of their guardians and Chidori's identity and _now how did you say you were related to the patient again,_ the Kirijo executives finally arrived to sweep aside the growing mountain of legal tape. Numbers were exchanged, contacts were established, and in short order the bottomless Kirijo funds had smoothed over the last of the mountains standing in their way.

Akihiko ended up falling asleep in one of the plastic chairs in the visitor's lounge, feet propped up on a pile of magazines on the center table. He was coaxed awake an indeterminable amount of time later by fingertips organizing the hair over his forehead; he groggily pried his eyes open to blink up at a very tired, very grim Mitsuru. "Sorry," he mumbled, sitting up a little straighter and rubbing his eyes. "What's up?"

"She's stabilized," Mitsuru said. She'd twisted her hair up out of her way with what looked like a hospital-issue pen. She didn't remove her hand, brushing a thumb by his temple and massaging it lightly, and since there was no one else around and it really did feel pretty great, Akihiko consented to its comfort. His body felt like he'd taken a dive through an ocean of cinderblocks. "The staff has as much information as they need to retain her and see to her care. Chidori's stay will be fully paid for by the Kirijo Corporation."

"We posting a guard?"

"I've been assured she's in no condition to pose a flight risk." Akihiko opened his mouth to argue and Mitsuru sighed. "We're posting a guard outside the building, but we can't afford to draw attention to her by leaving a detail by her room. The transactions made today… let us just say that it's better that they avoid inconvenient scrutiny."

"And if she's just pretending? It wouldn't be the first time she's tricked us."

"Qualified doctors have assured me she's suffering from acute symptoms of malnutrition and exhaustion. We can be assured of the hospital's competence in the matter."

Fine. He was too tired to press the point. "We going home?"

"You are. The chief of staff for my father's research team will be arriving soon to assess the severity of the situation, and I'm to brief him on the developments."

"Then I'll stay here and stand guard with you. I don't want to leave you here alone with her."

"Mm." The corners of Mitsuru's eyes crinkled a bit: one of her rare, genuine smiles. "Good point. Am I to take this then as a demonstration of your… everlasting vigilance?"

"You just caught me on a long blink."

"My father's chief of staff is en route to provide support, and I'll be busy with the briefings." Despite the teasing, there was a serious undercurrent in her tone as she rested the back of her hand against his forehead. "I still mean to speak with you on the subject of your recklessness, but there will time for that later. Go home and get as much rest as you can. I may need you to come with me tomorrow to question her, and that will require you at your best."

He kind of wanted to dig in his heels, but she'd beaten him to it. She'd gone down the rabbit holes in her head at least a dozen times while they were waiting for updates on Chidori's condition. How she'd explain away their lapse in security. How she'd deflect attention from Junpei. How she'd protect the continued autonomy of the team – and just as a strike unit, but of the members themselves. Legal adult status in their prefecture was seventeen and Akihiko had come of age last September. If his status as Kirijo Corp's ward was rescinded, he could find himself turned out onto the streets to fend for himself for the rest of his senior year.

 _Still._ Because they were alone, because she was Mitsuru and he was Akihiko and they didn't need to posture for an empty room, he reached up to gently enfold her wrist in his grip. _I'm still glad it's you and not me._ "I need to know," Mitsuru said, very quietly, for his ears alone, "if you're truly all right, Akihiko."

 _No._ The near-miss of his answer chilled him nearly as much as the winter in her touch. There was a rolling hiccup of static in him. The mind's eye that'd been blackened by too many hits that night _blinked,_ and for a moment everything inverted: the frozen sea under his ribs, the light of the storms he loved reflecting in her eyes.

Mitsuru's thumb was resting just above the bandage on his temple, parallel to the ridge of the scar. He could barely hear her. "Let me call a ride for you."

His chest was starting to hurt. Figuring it had to be his ribs, Akihiko took a shallow, experimental breath and was startled to realize that the burn had been coming from his lungs. "I'm okay," he murmured, distracted, remembering she was still waiting for an answer. He lifted his free hand to soothe away the ache in his chest, trying to even out his breathing before she noticed his lapse. "You don't have to call anyone."

"I don't think you should walk home."

He shook his head, letting go of her wrist to stand on his own. His skin felt like it was buzzing, his stomach swooping with a howling emptiness that echoed. Mitsuru slowly eased her weight back, folding her arms. Her attention was fixed on him so unerringly that he could feel the hairs rising on the back of his neck. "Seriously, I'm okay," Akihiko said. "Thanks for the offer, but I was kind of looking forward to clearing my head on the walk. It's not that far."

He knew he hadn't sold her, but Mitsuru was smart enough to recognize a losing battle. "Be at ease," she said instead. "I know this seems like a disaster, but it could very well turn out to be a great opportunity. We've defeated the Shadow and have captured an agent who could be of great use to us. There _are_ positives to come out of this. We just have to weather the storm."

"I'll let you take the lead, then." He gathered his gloves up from the coffee table and kind of wished he had a bag or something to conceal them. Much as he appreciated the blades on the knuckles during the Dark Hour, he had a feeling a beat cop wouldn't be quite as enthusiastic about them. "I'm gonna take off. Call me if you need anything."

"Be careful."

"I will. See you later."

The contrasting air temperatures made him sneeze as exited the front door. The night lay in heavy shades around him as he jogged across the hospital lot, inundated with the humidity left behind from the earlier rain. The fog had created an omnipresent patina over his surroundings that made his head pound, and as soon as he was able he veered from the main path, embracing the sensory relief of the darker side streets.

His thoughts were gratifyingly single-minded with purpose. The ice in his stomach intensified as he exerted himself, his hair growing damp over his neck as he kept an ear cocked toward the alleys. A combination of city lights and rain clouds were enough to blot out the stars but not quite enough to take down the moon; even as he moved could feel the unblinking eye on him, tracking his location behind the bakery, catching in his periphery as he stumbled over an unexpected rut in back yard of a used books store.

About halfway through the journey, Akihiko realized with a sinking heart that he'd vastly overestimated his reserves. He could feel his hands shaking as he scaled a fenced-in dog park, stabs of ice pricking him in random places at random times: the back of his thigh, his shoulders, the insides of his elbows. Years of exploring the town on foot during an Hour no one could see led him through shortcut after illegal shortcut, ducking security cameras and worming around barricades; his journey was soon narrowed to the solitary purpose of successfully placing one foot in front of the other, his head swamped with the same fog that choked the city.

By the time the SEES dorm had finally come into sight, Akihiko had exhausted his luck stat. He tripped on a rut in the sidewalk leading up to it and this time did go down, managing to avoid faceplanting by the sheer happenstance of a trash can on his left. _Shit._ His mouth was dry with panic. Had he really been that roughed up? He'd gotten no more knocked around than he had in the fight with the tank last month. He'd had plans to take a shower and calculate in a boiled egg for a post-workout protein booster, but at this point he had doubts he'd make it up the stairs in this condition.

 _Maybe I can sleep in the kitchen._ Or a couch, but he kind of wanted the egg and he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it back from the kitchen. Couch or egg. They all did strange things after the full moon battles, and tonight he had a better excuse than most of them. Nobody would squall too hard if they found him catching a quick nap against a wall with an egg.

Plan in motion, Akihiko used the trashcan to leverage his weight up. Shadows broke off from the corners of the building to swarm before his eyes. He pushed himself off his support before his body could decide what it would and wouldn't do for him, using what remained of his momentum to get him to the front door.

The gamble worked. Even as he dragged his unwilling carcass up the stairs, ingrained instincts had him throwing a double-take at the windows. The blinds had been pulled, but the lights in the receiving area were still spilling out over the sidewalk.

 _Wait._ His brain stuttered even as he fumbled for his key. In the seniors' absence Yukari was in charge of shutting everything off and securing the building. He wouldn't blame her for forgetting, but it wasn't like her to let—

Akihiko's fingertips brushed against the key before he let it drop back into his pocket. He tried the door handle, and the door opened without resistance.

 _Yeah, okay._ That oversight was a little more dire. Akihiko waffled between concern and irritation as he debated taking her to task in the morning. None of them were helpless in a fight, but not all home intrusions ended in fights. Sometimes they ended in petty theft or graffiti or inconvenient questions like 'why are there swords and guns lying around' and 'should we take these swords and guns and ask questions later'.

Mind occupied, Akihiko pushed into the door and was promptly hit with the one-two punch of air-conditioning and blinding light. _Oh, geez._ Startled with the intensity of his own dizziness, Akihiko blindly fumbled back against the door behind him and used his weight to close it.

Shaken, eyes closed, he let himself depend on the support for a long time, listening to the triple-time hustle of his own heart. The kitchen was probably a pipe dream. It'd make just as much sense if posted himself against the door for the night, right? Because Yukari had left it unlocked. Or something. He could defend that choice.

Just to make sure he wasn't plopping ass-first into a stiletto, he opened his eyes with the intention of guiding his trajectory down and stopped dead. Shinjiro was slouched in an armchair, still as a statue, dark eyes trained on him.

Utterly frozen, Akihiko stared at him stupidly, heart pounding in his ears. Shinjiro didn't offer any commentary, gaze not budging from his. "Uh," Akihiko said. He had to swallow. The next breath came out in a tumble. "Sorry, I didn't realize anyone was… I didn't think anyone else would be…"

Shinjiro's voice was quiet. "S'going on with the chick?"

"Huh?"

"The crazy chick you took in. What'd they say?"

It took an excruciating second for Akihiko's numbed brain to kick in. "She's… she's stable. They'll be keeping her there for a while."

"Kirijo still there?"

"She'll be back when she finishes the briefing with her dad's research team."

Shinjiro was silent.

Akihiko's hands were shaking. "What were doing just sitting there?" he blurted.

"I had a couple pains in my ass and this chair looked soft," Shinjiro said. "What's wrong with her?"

"Why do you care?"

"I care because you left Kirijo alone with all that crazy and no backup. Better question is, why don't you?"

Oh. Akihiko looked at his feet for a minute. He was still pretty rattled, but the shot of adrenaline had managed to clear his head enough to put the couch back in his orbit of possibilities.

He didn't dare test his luck by bending over, instead managing to peel off each shoe with a few scrapes of his heels. The world stayed level when he pushed away from the door. The bounce onto the couch cushions sent another prickling wave of nausea through his stomach, but to his relief everything in his body held together.

He hid himself from Shinjiro for a while by scratching his scalp with both hands, feeling cold sweat prickle along his hairline. "Look, Mitsuru's not alone," he said. "I told you, there's an armed guard outside and the research team is probably there already to take over. As soon as she's done debriefing them, she'll probably be helicoptering back to Yakushima to meet with her dad. I'm sure she's spending the night there."

"And the chick?"

"We took her Evoker. What do you think she's gonna do?"

Shinjiro's tone was flat and grim. "Ain't her I'm worried about."

Akihiko rubbed his temples, partially to ease the strain and partially to shield his eyes. It took him much longer this time to tumble to Shinjiro's implications. "Are you talking about Chidori's team?"

"She wasn't working alone. She's the scouter, which means she's reporting back to somebody. They come to get her, we're gonna have problems."

He hadn't thought of that. Still, his sense of paranoia was tuned pretty high, and something told him they could let this one go for now. The Dark Hour was done for the night, and assuming that Chidori's team wanted to remain underground, their options of springing her under armed guard without attracting attention were nil. If their surveillance was worth a damn, they'd know she was in no condition to be useful, so allowing her to stay and receive state-of-the-art medical care on someone else's yen would by far be the easiest solution in the short term. "I think it'll be all right."

"What're they keeping the chick there for?"

"They're treating the symptoms, mostly." He couldn't figure out where the dizziness was coming from. Akihiko shifted away from his temples to rub his eyes gently with his palms. "Their guess is she hasn't been eating right for a while. Dehydration, malnutrition, exhaustion, that sort of thing. There's some other technical stuff they told us, but I don't remember it. Either way, money switched hands, so the hospital's keeping her until we can form a better plan."

Shinjiro said nothing for a while. Akihiko could hear his fingers thumping the chair's upholstered arm.

Abruptly he stirred, heaving himself to his feet and making for the kitchen.

Akihiko continued to rub his face. He was still kind of invested in the egg and a kitchen nap, but the dorm's clean, cool air had reminded him just how grimy he felt. Best case scenario would be grabbing the egg and crawling upstairs for a shower, but he might have to cut corners until the egg had a chance to settle and do its job. If he could make it to his room, he could at least peel himself out of his clothes and worry about the rest of him later.

Before he could settle into a plan of action, Shinjiro reemerged from the kitchen with a tray laden with covered dishes. To Akihiko's surprise, Shinjiro slid it onto the coffee table directly front of him and began collecting the covers, letting the steam spill free. "What is this?" Akihiko said.

"Eat," Shinjiro said. He finished up his harvest and returned to the kitchen with the covers without another word.

Akihiko watched him go, then returned his attention to the tray's contents. There was a full bowl of piping hot _imoni_ with chopsticks already resting across the top, a mountain of fresh green onions perched atop the udon noodles. On one side of it sat a large plate full of _yaki gyoza_ , on the other side a narrow dish lined with flawlessly constructed _futomaki_ sushi. A mug of tea steamed in the corner of the platter. "Who made this?" Akihiko asked when Shinjiro reemerged from the kitchen. "There's no way you got something like this delivered this late."

"Eat." Shinjiro sounded tired and disengaged. He threw himself back into the chair and slid off his beanie, closing his eyes, rummaging his fingertips through his hair for a while.

Akihiko picked up the chopsticks and held them loosely between his fingers, but couldn't manage to get any further. The sheer deluge of scent and color was hurting his face. Had Arisato…?

No way. This was within her capabilities, but even she would've been too exhausted to whip up something this elaborate on such short notice. She'd been hollow-eyed enough that Akihiko had considered taking her along with them to the hospital just in case, but she'd been adamant about having a chance to clear the air with Junpei. There weren't any bloodstains to cue Akihiko in to how that all went down, but Arisato was good enough at disposing of bodies that Akihiko knew he'd have to wait until daylight to see whether or not he survived.

Still not quite believing his eyes, Akihiko finally pried his gaze up. "Was this _all_ you?"

"Quit stalling."

"I'm not stalling, I just want to know if you made this."

Shinjiro's mouth was in a flat, fulminating line. He was slouched nearly onto his back, half-swallowed by the chair, continuing to scratch his scalp and neck.

"Wait," Akihiko blurted. "You didn't make this just for _me,_ did you?"

Shinjiro's tone was tense and annoyed. "You see anyone else here?"

Seriously? He felt dizzy again. He'd known that Shinjiro could cook – had fed them pretty elaborately back in the day if the mood struck him – but actual confirmation that Shinjiro had stayed up after a hard battle to prepare this for him, not even knowing when or if Akihiko would be back, hit Akihiko as hard as a right hook.

He had to clear his throat, feeling his face grow hot. "Thanks. You didn't have to. Really."

Shinjiro made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

Akihiko looked down and wondered how he was supposed to deal with this. Whether or not he like the food or not wasn't as much of a problem as the sheer _amount_ of it _._ Was he expected to take this all down tonight?

He stole a glance at the clock. It was well after midnight – nearly dawn at this point – which meant he was into the next day's calorie quota. He could skip breakfast and lunch and gamble on a solid workout to earn back dinner, but without knowing the nutritional information of the food it was impossible to know whether or not he was blowing past his limits. Akihiko couldn't even remember the last time he'd eaten a meal in front of someone. What was even the etiquette here? Was he supposed to share? "You gotta pick up the food in order to eat it, asshole," Shinjiro said. "You think it's gonna get bored and jump in there by itself?"

"I know, shut up. I was getting to it." Resigning himself to a few polite bites, Akihiko bypassed the green onion in the _imoni_ bowl to nab a mound of noodles. Fumbling a little with hands still sore from battle, he lifted the noodles up out of the dashi stock, blowing on them perfunctorily before guiding them to his mouth. They were still pretty hot, but they—

Then the flavor hit him and the world burst into technicolor. Akihiko involuntarily inhaled and spent several moments hacking around the drop of sauce that had snaked its way into his lungs, but he was somehow still chewing around it with watering eyes, enveloped in the thick aroma of ginger coming up with the steam from the bowl. His stomach initially rebelled and for a panicked second he thought he was going to lose it, and then just as abruptly something _switched on_ and his entire world narrowed to the tray in front of him, and nothing else had ever mattered more in his life.

He bypassed the onions and found a sliver of beef. This time he only blew on it for a second before jamming it into his mouth. The flavor once again sent prisms dancing across his vision. It was tender and went down after only a few chews. This time an onion and another sliver of beef and a green pepper, swallowed quickly enough that he had to bang his chest to help it along. He sucked the sauce off the chopsticks and began to dive for another helping when the bowl of dumplings caught his eye.

He scooped one up with his fingers, skidding a little in a layer of grease on the dish, and thrust it into his mouth. It was agonizingly hot as it exploded between his teeth, spilling out the sauce and pork and onion and cabbage, but he'd never tasted anything so mind-blowing in his life. His eyes were watering as he scooped up another one and repeated the mistake, this time chasing it down with a hasty sip of comparatively cooler tea. The flavors slammed together and he swayed a little, hand pressed over his mouth as his stomach argued to keep it and ultimately won.

 _Sushi._ He could barely think. His hand was shaking as he reached over the dumplings to rescue a roll and shove it into his mouth. It was perfectly balanced with cucumber and ginger, complimenting the salty bite of eel and _nori_. He barely chewed before swallowing. A gulp of tea and another dumpling and another roll of sushi and some noodles and he was licking his thumb and forefinger like he was two years old, trying to suck off any traces of salt. Another sip of tea washed it all down, and then he was fumbling with his chopsticks again to seek out another slice of beef in the _imoni._

"Eat your vegetables."

The voice cut through the swarm in his head. Akihiko came back to himself with a hard flinch, dropping one of his chopsticks as the room snapped back into focus. Shinjiro's expression was unreadable, his ankle propped across his knee. It was clear he'd been watching Akihiko the entire time.

His heart was thudding to replace the white noise in his ears. Jarred, Akihiko blinked down at the tray and tried to remember what it was he'd been doing to it. A few bites to show he appreciated the effort. Some research later on the recipes to calculate how much he'd taken down, and then he'd roll the numbers together and he'd…

 _Shit._ Akihiko both felt and heard his stomach give an expectant growl for the next bite, but his blood had grown cold, his hand starting to shake again. He stared down at the dent he'd already made and tried not to let the slow-tide of his panic rise to his expression. If Shinjiro hadn't spoken up, he would've spaced out and porked down the entire platter out of habit. He didn't need research to tell him that this was easily a 1500 calorie meal.

Shinjiro's eyes were still on him. _Shit._ His vision blurred. He rescued his fallen chopstick and clenched them both hard into his fist, trying to keep his breathing steady to avoid suspicion. "So how…" he wrestled his tone back to casual. "How were the others after we left with Chidori? Did everyone make it back okay?"

Shinjiro didn't move at all. "S'fine."

"How was Junpei?"

"He lived. It was his own damn fault anyway."

"What about Arisato?"

Shinjiro said nothing. "She said they were going to have it out," Akihiko said. "To be honest, I was kind of worried about leaving them alone, but I figured you'd be here to stop it from getting too out of control, so—"

"Your food's gonna get cold," Shinjiro said.

Akihiko shifted his chopsticks to rub a thumb restlessly over their smooth surface. They were the stylized, reusable kind Mitsuru liked to stock the kitchen with: sleek with varnish and flower motifs on the grip end. "Did Ikutsuki-san talk to you guys? We didn't see him show up at the hospital."

"Aki." Shinjiro's eyes were dark under the fringe of his hair. His tone and expression were and flat. "Shut up and eat."

His stomach was a churning toothless maw. Akihiko fussed over a green onion, blowing on it unnecessarily before sliding it into his mouth. It crunched gloriously between his teeth.

Feeling the weight of Shinjiro's gaze, he chewed longer than he had to before swallowing, then stopped.

"Eat," Shinjiro said.

"I am, what's your problem?" he snapped, rattled by Shinjiro's unprecedented behavior. "If you're bored, why don't you just do something else? I don't need you babysitting me all through dinner."

Shinjiro's inflection didn't change at all. "Lot of dumplings left."

Gritting his teeth, Akihiko moved on to the sushi and pointedly avoided the dumplings. He moved the roll around a bit, trying to dislodge some of the sauce, before carefully picking it up. Again the combination of flavors hit him hard across the bow, rocking the tide in him high enough to nearly drown him a second time.

 _Hold it together._ A mushroom and another pepper. He could feel his hairline prickling as new sweat beaded under the grime. He swirled his chopsticks in the _imoni_ bowl, lifted them to suck off the sauce, and stopped.

Shinjiro was almost soft. "Eat."

"I _am_ , get off my fucking back." His hand was shaking again. He found another mushroom and heard his teeth squeak on its rubbery hide before he swallowed it. Another onion. Another roll of sushi, pinched between the wavering ends of his chopsticks.

Humiliating heat was building behind his eyes. Another involuntary tremor had the sushi slipping from his grip, and with a concussive suddenness, Akihiko was done.

He thrust the chopsticks aside and lurched forward with his elbows on his knees, hiding his face in his hands. They stank of ash and hospital antiseptic. He stole a harsh breath that rattled, let it out between his teeth, and stayed that way for a long, long time.

The night eventually moved on without him, rhythmically wound down by the analog clock on the opposite wall. A film of grease sat heavily in his stomach. Even as he continued to bury himself in his hands, Akihiko gradually felt them stop trembling, allowing the rest of him to steady out until his breathing calmed in tandem. Outside his sphere of focus, he felt the building brace and then hiccup around them as the expensive central-air hummed to life in the vents over their heads.

Throughout the entire process Akihiko could sense Shinjiro hadn't left. By the time the clock chimed the hour, Akihiko's heartbeat had slowed enough that his embarrassment won out over his anxiety.

Shinjiro wasn't looking at him by the time Akihiko managed to pry himself back away from his barricade. He'd returned to a deep slouch, hands shoved deep in his pockets, gaze settling somewhere near the door. "I'm sorry," Akihiko said. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

Shinjiro didn't move. "Done freaking out?"

"Yeah."

"Been a while since you had one that bad."

"Yeah." His knuckles were deeply bruised. Akihiko ran a slow thumb over them, feeling the swelling between their ridges. He hadn't realized he'd done that much damage. "Think I was overdue."

"Hospital set you off?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

Shinjiro didn't push him. He did shift his weight, easing his ankle up over his knee, and Akihiko saw his gaze flit over to the tray.

Guilt flickered to life again inside the haze of exhaustion. Akihiko scrubbed his face down and tried to get himself in order. "I'm sorry. I should've told you earlier. It was really good. Sorry I just kind of crammed it in there without saying thanks or anything."

Shinjiro said nothing, but his gaze finally slid up to Akihiko's. There was no expression whatsoever on his face. "I don't plan to waste it or anything," Akihiko added, kind of unnerved by the intensity. He cleared his throat. "I'll, uh, pack it up so I can eat it later today. I mean, if you didn't want to save it for someone else. I'm sure Arisato's going to be too tired to make anything, so everyone's going to be pretty jealous I've got something this good."

Shinjiro's voice was quiet. "Seen you take down ten times that after fights back in the day."

For some reason the nonjudgmental tone put him more on edge than an outright attack. Akihiko felt himself navigating in weird waters. He knew how to react to a Shinjiro that blew him off or yelled expletives at him until he got his shit together. This exhausted, impenetrable gargoyle eyeballing his every move from an armchair was something he didn't have a battle plan for.

As usual, he solved the problem by running away. He stood from the couch and made a reflexive grab for the back to steady himself, but to his surprise the ground stayed level. _Huh,_ he thought, mystified but relieved. Other than the predictable stiffness of overused muscles gone cold, he felt for the first time that he'd actually be able to make it up the stairs.

Shinjiro didn't move as Akihiko rolled up his sleeves, intending to at least pack the food away and do the dishes. "Aren't you going to bed?" Akihiko asked. "You have to be tired after all that."

"Staying down here a while longer." Shinjiro didn't budge. "Don't bother with that stuff, I'll get it."

"Huh?" Akihiko paused mid-roll, cuff already to his elbow. "No way. You made it, the least I can do is take care of the dishes."

"I'll put it away."

"Seriously, let me do this much. Why don't you use the shower first and I'll—"

Shinjiro didn't look at him. "Go to bed, Aki."

Taken aback, Akihiko slowly closed his mouth to study him. Shinjiro was sprawled in the chair so deeply it looked like he'd thrown down roots. He seemed tired and a little raw.

The part of Akihiko that was Polydeuces stirred, and for a moment the dorm's boundaries tumbled away like a wave returning to sea. Standing in front of Shinjiro, back towards the darkness pressing in on them from the windows, Akihiko felt the space between the two of them echo with new depth. He wanted, with an aching sudden stupid recklessness, to reach out and physically bridge the gap between them, to prove that Shinjiro was still there and Akihiko hadn't succeeded in pushing him away yet.

 _At what point,_ Akihiko thought, distantly hearing the familiar rattle at the gate as his pain pushed on the other side, _do I run out of chances._ How many more times was the universe going to let him sit outside Shinjiro's door like he had that first night, marveling that he somehow hadn't fucked everything up, that he hadn't been too late, that everyone had gotten out, that he hadn't failed anybody in between. _How long before I trip up and lose everything all over again._

He nearly reached out and didn't. After a moment the sensation faded, and without ceremony Akihiko was back inside his own head, skin prickling in the too-cold lobby of the dorm.

He backed off – one step and then another. "Okay," he said. "Good night."

Shinjiro grunted.

With nothing else to do, Akihiko turned and headed up the stairs. His stomach rattled like bones in a crypt.

* * *

.

He slept briefly but intensely, plunging into a darkness that ignored dawn. He woke up around eight to stumble to the bathroom, reeling so hard he knocked twice into the wall, then tumbled back into bed and continued to sleep all the way up to the point where light was knifing into his eyes and something was knocking against his door.

Thinking he was hearing things, Akihiko peeled his face up from the pillow long enough to lend a bleary eye towards his phone. Mitsuru hadn't called yet, which hopefully meant she'd slept in and was getting fussed over with a large breakfast before getting flown back out of Yakushima. The readout told him it was barely after ten, which explained the quiet in the dorm.

Figuring he'd earned at least another hour, Akihiko dropped his phone and buried his face in his pillow again.

He was back on the edge of sleep when the thudding sound came again, this time accompanied by a long, soft whine.

Instantly alert, Akihiko threw the covers aside and fumbled out from under his covers. His head spun a little at the transition. Grabbing his bedside table for support, he leveraged his way out of bed and shuffled across the floor to open the door.

Koromaru was standing alone in the hallway. He wagged his tail once when Akihiko opened the door. "What?" Cogent but foggy, Akihiko stifled a yawn as he scratched the back of his neck. "What is it?"

Koromaru whined again, low but urgent. His ears were plastered to his head, his feet shifting under him about nervously.

Akihiko blinked down at him uncomprehendingly for another moment. It was unusual to see him at this time of day. The girls usually let Koromaru out early in the morning before school so he could hold vigil over the shrine. Koromaru was independent and always returned in the evening by himself.

Then Akihiko recognized the dance Koromaru was doing, and the realization finally jarred him from his stupor. "Oh," he blurted, horrified. "Oh, no. Okay, okay, c'mon, let's go."

Without bothering to put on his house slippers, Akihiko took off down the hall. Koromaru was hot on his heels, shadowing him on the pell-mell sprint down the stairs. Akihiko raced across the lobby and threw open the door, letting sunlight spill inside. Koromaru shot past him and swerved directly to a spot by the stairs. Within seconds he was relieving himself.

His heart was pounding with the sudden transition of sleep to sprinting. Gasping for breath, Akihiko leaned against the door, blinking up against the piercing onslaught of afternoon sunlight. In the corner of his vision he saw a trio of middle-aged women walking on the sidewalk past the dorm, grocery totes in hand. When they happened to catch sight of him they blanched; he heard one of them utter a little gasp before they ducked their heads together, whispering as they passed by.

Only then did Akihiko realize he was bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only his sleep pants. _Oh, come on._ Halfway between embarrassment and irritation, Akihiko briefly thought about going inside to get a jacket and dismissed it just as quickly. It was hardly worse than what he wore at the beach. Chances were they'd all seen a guy bare-chested before anyway, and if they hadn't they were probably overdue.

Koromaru slunk back around the base of the stairs, ears still pinned back, looking dejected. Akihiko sat down on the top stair as Koromaru sidled up, settling his big doggy head in Akihiko's lap. "Aw," Akihiko said before he could stop himself. "It's okay, boy. It's our fault, not yours. I can't believe nobody let you out this morning."

Koromaru let out a wet woof of air, nose leaving a smear on Akihiko's stomach. The others must've been really tired to forget something so basic. He hoped they'd all made it safely to school.

… except he'd just slept in because it was Sunday. _What the hell._ All of the juniors couldn't still be asleep. They'd come in hours earlier than he had. Someonehad to have woken up this morning to…

 _Or not._ Akihiko forced himself to rein in his criticism. He and Mitsuru'd had the later night, but Ken and Arisato at least had valid excuses to be totaled. Junpei had been known to sleep in until two in the afternoon on a normal Sunday, never mind those following a full moon. Aigis was probably still charging. Had the others left? If so, how was it that none of them had thought to let Koromaru out?

Koromaru's tail was still down. "Hey, c'mon," Akihiko said, setting the issue aside for now. He rubbed his hands briskly in the thick fur of Koromaru's neck. "Cheer up. You didn't do anything wrong. Hey, how about we take a walk, huh? Go down to the park or something. I'll put in a movie for you when we get home, your choice. I'd say we earned a day off, what about you?"

Koromaru's ears shot back up as his entire demeanor shifted from shame to pure, unadulterated joy. He was such an expressive dog. Eerily perceptive, freakishly smart. Akihiko had to wonder if it was a byproduct of his persona or if Koromaru had earned his persona by having those qualities in the first place. "I gotta change first," Akihiko said, then thought of something else. "Did anyone feed you?"

Koromaru's ears pinned back briefly, then shot up again. "Poor guy." Akihiko tried not to get irritated, but it was hard. He didn't care how tired they were. How could they not remember to feed the dog? "C'mon. I've got a feast waiting for us. You're gonna love this."

Akihiko made quick work of getting decent for public exposure, scrubbing his fingers back through his hair to get it into some semblance of order. He thumped back downstairs and squatted on stiff calf muscles to open the fridge. Sure enough, Shinjiro had stored everything away for him in the community glassware. All the dishes had been labeled in his distinctive squat, unexpectedly neat writing – 'SANADA; 9/5'.

A psychiatrist would have a field day with him, Akihiko thought, sliding them out one by one to pile them on the counter. Then again, a psychiatrist would have a field day with any of them.

He heated up everything. Figuring Shinjiro would get suspicious if all of them were gone, he gave three-quarters of the fried dumplings to Koromaru, dumping them all like gravy atop his regular dog food. As a bonus he slid in a few pieces of beef from the _imoni,_ hoping it'd throw Shinjiro off the trail, thinking Akihiko had dug in but skipped on the vegetables. For himself, Akihiko prepared a separate, smaller bowl of the broth, allowing a few of the noodles and several of the onions to drop in, and treated himself to the remaining two rolls of sushi in hopes the carbohydrates would power his walk. "Okay, little fella," he announced, piling them all on a tray and carting them out to the lobby's TV. No sense in roughing it when they evidently had the place to themselves. "Dig in. It's made by the finest chef in Iwatodai."

Koromaru needed no further invitation. Akihiko ate slowly and thought he might die. The flavor had matured overnight, bringing out a ringing harmony of soy and ginger, and without warning the tide from earlier that day crept up along his periphery. There were still noodles he hadn't scooped out from the main dish. He had a hard workout the night before, he could justify a few more of—

 _Stop._ He had to swallow down a flood of saliva. He forced himself to sip slower, to appreciate the gift of each mouthful rather than preoccupying himself with thoughts of a second helping. It was nice to take down a leisurely meal without a judgmental audience. No need to muddy the waters with decisions he'd regret later.

Akihiko allowed himself to finish the broth and ate only one of the sushi rolls to compromise. By the time he'd returned the dishes to the sink, Koromaru had fetched his own leash and Akihiko was feeling roughly eighty percent more human than he had when he'd woken up.

He spent a leisurely hour in the park with Koromaru, hoping to chase some of the pallor off him with some medicinal sunlight. The clean aroma of grass and nearby saltwater effectively banished the last memory of last night's burnt insulation, and after a while Akihiko found himself flopping around in general sensory pleasure, even consenting to play a little tag with Koromaru as the sun crept higher into the sky.

He was out of breath and tiring again by the time the hour was up. He was willing to go longer for Koromaru's sake, figuring the big dog hadn't yet exhausted his energy, but Koromaru was strangely insistent at the end, continuously nudging Akihiko behind the knees to steer him back towards the dorm. There was still no one down in the lobby when they returned, so as promised Akihiko let Koromaru choose a DVD, loading the movie into the ancient player under the lobby's TV.

He'd had plans to go out for a run while Koromaru watched, but the trip to the park had cost more than he'd realized. He ended up falling asleep again somewhere past the start of the movie, hand trailing over the side to rest on Koromaru's warm back.

By the time he woke up the movie had returned to its menu screen, repeating the same thirty second musical intro. Koromaru was lying patiently under Akihiko's hand, nose parked between his paws. Sensing Akihiko was awake, Koromaru lifted his head to look at him, tongue lolling out happily. "You're a good boy," Akihiko said. "I've told you that, right?"

Koromaru snapped his jaw shut expressively, then let his tongue loll out again. He looked pleased. "You knew I was worn out, didn't you," Akihiko said. "It's kind of embarrassing to be babysat by a dog, you know."

Koromaru's jaw snapped shut again. If Akihiko didn't know any better, he'd swear the dog was laughing at him. "I'm serious," Akihiko said. "I would've been fine."

Koromaru responded by shifting his nose underneath Akihiko's palm, nudging it upwards. Akihiko obligingly scratched his ears, and Koromaru let out a satisfied grunt under his touch. "Hey," Akihiko said. On the screen, the musical intro faded out, then started again from the top. "That food today."

Koromaru shifted his head – not enough to remove his ears from reach, but enough to get Akihiko in his peripherals. "You can't tell Aigis I gave you that," Akihiko said. "Promise me."

Koromaru's mouth shut. His ears flicked a question, and Akihiko shifted to dig his fingernails under Koromaru's collar, giving the thick halo of fur a sound scratch. "Because she'll tell Shinji," he said. He actually didn't know how far to go into it. Koromaru was loyal and smart as hell, but Akihiko kind of had doubts that he'd understand the politics of it. Also _he was talking to a dog._ Sometimes he still wasn't convinced this all wasn't just a fever dream and he wasn't back at the orphanage under heavy drugs with Shinjiro drawing mustaches on him as he slept. "Look, just promise me, okay?" Akihiko said. "It's not that he wouldn't want you to have it, it's just, he made it for me, and I don't want to hurt his feelings or anything. That make sense?"

Koromaru let him scratch him for a while longer, then shook himself out authoritatively. Akihiko slid his hand away. Evidently settled, Koromaru twisted his head and nosed the inside of Akihiko's wrist gently, then gave it a lick.

Akihiko closed his eyes. The burn in them was terrifyingly close to tears. "Good boy."

* * *

.

As he'd suspected, Junpei thumped down the stairs around three o'clock that afternoon, still looking half-dead and in no mood to be approached. It turned out that Fuuka, Arisato, and Yukari had gone out that morning for a day out on the town, which blew Akihiko's mind in the worst of ways. He chalked it up to some sort of psychological defense for all the gut-wrenching weirdness in their lives, but how the hell did three girls drag themselves out of bed that early after a full moon to spend the day doing something as useless as shopping? Weren't there more important things on their plate?

He was irritated enough to rake them over the coals a bit about it, but backed off when he saw they were all visibly horrified by their mistake. Aigis, who'd evidently spent the morning defragmenting her hard drive, pronounced herself 'deeply shamed' by the oversight and vowed to set an internal alarm on Sundays from then on to fix the problem. "We didn't see him," Fuuka insisted, almost in tears. She still looked visibly exhausted, as did all the girls, which only made their decision to spend all day wandering around town more annoying. "I swear we would have let him out if we'd noticed him."

Admittedly, that was probably a valid point. Koromaru tended to lurk in the second floor hallway or up on the couch in the fourth floor briefing room, but if he'd been tired enough to sleep in too, it would've been an easy thing to forget to let him out.

Akihiko didn't have long to wonder about it. Just as he was starting to worry that he'd maybe missed her call, Mitsuru finally phoned him up around four o'clock. " _She's stable enough to be questioned,_ " Mitsuru said. There was hospital intercom chatter somewhere beyond her; he heard her pull away briefly to murmur to someone else, returning a few seconds later. " _If you're free, I could use your assistance. She's being extremely reticent._ "

"On my way," he said.

Junpei, who'd swung between uncommunicative and pissy since he'd risen from the dead, was all over him the instant he hung up. "Was that Mitsuru-senpai? What's going on? How's Chidori?"

"I don't know," Akihiko said, annoyed by the ambush. "I'm heading over there now."

"I'm going with you."

"No, you're not. Mitsuru and I are the only ones who are allowed to be in the room with her right now. She's too unstable for us all to just crowd in there."

"'Us all'?" Junpei's eyes were angry and bloodshot. "And just what do _you_ two know about her? You didn't know she existed until yesterday. Suddenly you're the boss of who gets to go and see her?"

"We didn't know about her until yesterday because you were too busy blabbing our secrets to a chest you were trying to impress," Akihiko said. "You're not the one who's going to get strung up if this gets any more out of hand, Iori. Mitsuru's protecting you by keeping you away."

"I don't want to be protected, I want to see Chidori!"

"That's not my problem." The relaxing morning seemed eons away. Fatigue added a harsher edge to his words than he'd intended. "Harassing me won't change the fact that _you're_ the one who messed up, Junpei. Just be grateful for the fact that Mitsuru is willing to protect you. Me, I would have let you swing."

Junpei closed his mouth slowly, color draining from his face. He looked murderously angry.

Yukari chose this time to come out of the kitchen with a plate full of food. Sensing the confrontation, she stopped short and looked between them.

Junpei's gaze didn't move from his.

For the first time, Akihiko was the one to break the contest. He snatched his jacket from the back of the chair and left without looking back.

* * *

.

It turned out that Mitsuru had traveled back to the Kirijo estate around five in the morning, leaving behind a guard and the third shift to monitor Chidori. Once she'd had a decent night's sleep under her belt, she'd relayed the situation again to Ikutsuki and Takeharu, formally documenting SEES's activities that past month so the research team could get a better sense of the timeline. Once the debriefing was complete and her maids had made sure she'd had breakfast, she'd been helicoptered back to the hospital to relieve the research team's attempts to interrogate Chidori.

Akihiko arrived early that evening to see Chidori sitting up on the bed, sketchbook propped up in her lap. Her pencil scribbled ceaselessly, rasping out an occasional low tone when Chidori added a sharp underscore to her work. Mitsuru was stationed at the foot of her bed, arms crossed and expression taut; she glanced up swiftly when Akihiko opened the door, striding towards him. "Thank you," she said. "I hope I didn't disrupt anything."

"You know you didn't." He gave her a once-over, but while she looked tense, the lines of exhaustion were gone from her face. Whatever sleep she'd caught at the estate seemed to have done her some good. "You okay?"

"I'm well." She brushed the underside of his chin with her fingertips: a clinical gesture meant to change the angle of light on his face, but too glancing to really do any good. The gesture admitted more to him than words could have. The past twenty-four hours had been hard on her. She was relieved to see him. "I hope you rested."

"Probably more than you did." Akihiko glanced over her shoulder. Chidori hadn't looked up at all at the exchange, but he knew better than to think she wasn't listening. "What's going on?"

"Not a thing." Mitsuru was curt and weary. "I've been questioning her for a couple of hours now. She hasn't said a single word. Not to me, not to the research team."

"Are we sure she can?" He'd been focused pretty heavily on Junpei at the time, but Akihiko keenly remembered her dissolving into incoherent panic the instant the Evoker was out of reach. "I mean, maybe she really has lost it."

"I don't think so. She seems cogent enough. Her sketches are nonsensical, but the doctors assure me she's understood everything they've told her regarding her condition. I think she simply… does not want to talk. I can't say I blame her."

"We're not interrogators." He lowered his voice further. "If she's decided she's not going to talk, it's not like we can force her."

"I had hoped that having more than one of us in the room would… persuade her," Mitsuru said haltingly, a trace of reluctance entering her smooth tone. "Right now intimidation is the only tool we have. The problem is, at this point I can think of very little to threaten her with. We _could_ use her Evoker as leverage, but—"

"No. Whatever else you do, don't mention that at all."

Visibly taken aback by the interruption, Mitsuru raised an expectant eyebrow. "Look, it won't do any good," Akihiko said. "Even if we make her a promise to return it in exchange for information, there's no way we can actually allow her to have it back. It's just going to get her worked up again. We need to keep her calm and on track. The Evoker doesn't matter. We already know she's a persona user. What we need to know is who it was she was reporting back to."

"I'm well-aware of that." An edge crept into her tone, but Akihiko sensed it wasn't for him. "I've been going in circles with her for hours. If she would just give me something to work with… if I could just get my foot in the door… but there's been nothing. No leverage whatsoever."

"Do you want me to try to talk to her?" This he offered more doubtfully. There was roughly a one hundred percent chance Chidori wasn't even going to give him the time of day, let alone spill valuable intel, but Mitsuru looked so stressed out he felt he had to offer something.

Mitsuru predictably shook her head, but some of the tension in her shoulders eased a bit. "I doubt she would have any more reason to talk to you than she would to me, considering you're the one who took her Evoker. I hate to say it, but at this point I think Iori would have the most leverage."

"I don't want to bring him into this," Akihiko said, and bridled when she only sighed. "Look, he's already being a problem. I don't want him thinking he has to 'save' anybody. He was jumping down my throat when I left and it's only going to get worse the longer we keep her here. We still don't know what this girl can do. I mean, what's to say she hasn't already gotten to him? We don't know what her persona can do. If she's hurt him in some way already—"

A soft sound came from the bed. Akihiko stopped mid-sentence to blink over. Chidori was still staring down at her sketchbook, her small hands gripping the sides so hard her knuckles blanched.

Akihiko straightened to watch her more closely. Mitsuru in contrast was already in action, giving Akihiko a significant look before turning to stride back towards the bed. "Are you ready to talk now?"

Not sure what else to do, Akihiko took a position on the opposite side of the bed. Up close, stripped of her Evoker and bundled into a hospital gown, Chidori looked less like an enemy agent and more like a sulky child who'd never seen sunlight in her life. She wasn't pretty in any conventional sense: her hair was a long, unnatural cherry-red sectioned into china-doll bangs that looked sharp enough to cut, her eyes narrow and suspicious and constantly blinking.

Still, Akihiko had to admit there was something about her that drew the eye. If he didn't still feel like dividing Junpei up and mailing his pieces off to seven different countries, he'd be able to sympathize with a desire to get to know her. "I'll ask you once more," Mitsuru said. "Is Chidori your real name?"

Akihiko watched Chidori closely. There was no sign at all that she'd even heard the question.

"What kind of organization is Strega? Are there others besides you three?"

No response. Akihiko snuck a peak at Mitsuru, who sighed and slid her eyes over to him as if to say _what more can I do._

He was about to offer a suggestion when a sudden tumult came from outside the room. There was the squeak of gurney wheels and something rapping hard against the wall; a second later Yukari's breathless voice soared above the commotion. " _Hey, wait, Junpei! You're not supposed to be here, remember?_ "

Mitsuru had frozen. Akihiko felt the blood rush out of his face as he met her disbelieving gaze. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chidori finally react, head lifting marginally toward the sound.

The door banged open. Junpei spilled in, bringing a swirl of outside air and an overwhelming odor of sweat. His attention immediately shot towards the bed; in a voice loud enough to travel through both of Akihiko's eardrums and the fabric of time and space he screamed, " _Chidori!_ "

Akihiko was too flabbergasted to move. Yukari flew in on Junpei's heels a second later, stumbling and gasping for breath. Her face was nearly as red as Chidori's hair. " _Junpei!_ " she spat, visibly gearing up for a tirade, then spotted both Mitsuru and Akihiko and recoiled. "I'm _so sorry_. He wouldn't stop bugging me about this place—"

"How are you feeling?" Junpei had the balls to actively ignore them all. He'd headed straight to Chidori's side to fuss, examining her up and down as though Akihiko had been interrogating her with knives. "Seems like you've calmed down."

Still frozen with anger and disbelief, Akihiko felt his gaze drift reflexively back over to Mitsuru. Despite her initial surprise, Mitsuru in contrast had smoothed out her emotions almost immediately. She now leaned back on her heels with a perfect replica of a smile. "She certainly has. In fact, she won't say a word."

Junpei frowned at Chidori. Chidori for her part had also elected to ignore them all, returning to her art as though the interruption hadn't occurred.

Mitsuru's unpleasant smile deepened. "Maybe we should confiscate her sketchbook too."

Again Chidori didn't verbally respond, but Akihiko saw her fingers tighten possessively over her pencil. "Hey, come on," Junpei snapped, straightening up in order to face Mitsuru. "What good would that do? That won't make her talk."

"I'm not so sure about that. She was quite upset when we took her Evoker."

Akihiko jolted from his thoughts, alarmed at the purr in Mitsuru's voice. Too late he realized he'd underestimated her frustration. "Speaking of which," Mitsuru said, confirming his dread. "Where _did_ you get that?"

" _No,_ " Akihiko hissed, undertone, but Chidori's pencil had already stopped dead.

She looked down at her lap, then up at the wall. Akihiko saw her expression roil under her mask, and she said, with absolutely no inflection whatsoever in her voice, "Medea."

They all jumped as Chidori suddenly hurled her sketchbook down into her lap. "Give her back to me!" she screamed. "Give it back to me! _I want her back!_ "

"Hey," Akihiko snarled, incensed at the way everything was going in general. "I told you not to bring that up, didn't I?"

"Then what am I _supposed to do_?" Just as quickly as she'd lost her temper, Mitsuru reined herself in once again. Her calm voice had grown deadly. "I'll have someone else try next time."

Akihiko recognized immediately that she was at her limit. "Yukari," he said, flagging Yukari's attention. Transfixed by the drama, Yukari jumped a little to be addressed. "Call a nurse," Akihiko said. "We're done for the day. I'll inform Ikutsuki-san of the difficulties we're having."

Chidori's hysteria had dialed down almost immediately, reducing her back down to a mumbling, nonsensical mess. "Why," she breathed, swaying in place. "Why why why. Why did you take it from me. Why. Why. Medea. Why."

Junpei's face was devoid of color. He was staring at her like he'd never seen her before. "C'mon, Junpei." Yukari pulled gently on his elbow. "Let's go."

"Chidori." Junpei's soft voice was more vulnerable than Akihiko had ever heard it. His hand was clenching in and out of a fist, his gaze unblinking and overbright as he took Chidori in helplessly. "What happened to you?"

Yukari threw a glance at Akihiko. "Junpei," she prompted, tugging on his arm.

Junpei jerked as if yanked from a trance. He blinked around at them as though he were trying to place them.

Then his face darkened. He shoved the brim of his hat down over his eyes and yanked his arm away from Yukari, refusing to look at any of them as he stalked out of the room.

The silence sat a moment, undercut by Chidori's incessant murmuring. "I-I'll call the nurse," Yukari said at last. She couldn't seem to look at them either, and a moment later she followed Junpei's path out.

In the wake of the turmoil, Akihiko let his gaze slide to Mitsuru. She was standing with her arms tightly folded against her body, lips pressed together, expression closed off. He knew if he approached her now she'd be as responsive as stone.

 _Damn it._ A swell of sudden rage made him dizzy. _Damn it. Damn it._

He strode past her and ripped the door aside. Yukari was at the nurse's station and shot him a surprised glance as he stormed by.

Junpei was already nearing the door to the remote stairwell at the end of the corridor by the time Akihiko caught up to him. Fueled by his own anger, Akihiko closed the distance just as Junpei reached it, shoving past Junpei to prevent him from exiting. "Get out of my way, senpai," Junpei said tightly.

"You've got some nerve," Akihiko growled, shaking with anger. "I told you earlier to _stay away from this._ "

"And I told you I was coming to see her. What, you think you can stop me from going to public places now too? I don't give a shit if you're older than me. You don't tell me where I can and can't go."

"Yes, I _do,_ because you're a member of SEES and I'm one of your commanding officers. The entire reason you're allowed to stay in that dorm for free is because you signed a contract to abide by the rules and be part of a team."

"Yeah? You sure we read the same contract? 'Cause _I_ didn't see a clause that said I had to bend over and kiss your ass every time you get a bug up it," Junpei said. "Who do you think you are? You want to kick me out of SEES, fine, but you're crazy if you think you're stopping me from seeing her."

"Who the hell do I think _I_ am?" Akihiko echoed incredulously, voice raising. "You've endangered _lives_ with this stupid stunt and now you've got the nerve to barge in here and make things even more difficult for Mitsuru? Do you have _any_ idea how hard she had to work to spin this just to keep your ass out of the fire? How many strings she had to pull? You nearly lost everything. Mitsuru _saved_ you, and this is how you thank her? By acting like a spoiled brat who can't keep his brain out of his pants?"

"Yeah, I _get_ it," Junpei snarled. "I _get it,_ okay?Junpei fucked up, all right? Junpei's sooo stupid. Junpei makes problems for everybody every time he opens his mouth. It's hard to believe Junpei can walk and talk at the same time—"

"You gave up secrets people have diedfor so you could impress some girl you met on the street—"

"She's _not_ just some girl!"

" _Yes she is!_ " Akihiko roared. "You know _nothing about_ her, Junpei! Your big plan to show off nearly got you and the rest of us killed, not to mention put the mission and the entire city in danger. What do you think would've happened to you if we hadn't have come in when we did?"

Rage was contorting Junpei's expression, but to his credit Junpei visibly wrestled his volume back under control enough to say, albeit tightly, "She wouldn't have done anything to me."

"How do you _know_."

"I just do."

"Oh, well, everything's okay then," Akihiko said. "Remind me to let Mitsuru know. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear you've got this whole mess figured out. Because me, _I'm_ thinking that we don't know the half of what this girl is capable of—"

"Stop calling her 'girl'!" Junpei exploded. "Her name is Chidori!"

"We don't know _what_ her name is! We don't know _anything!_ That's my point, Junpei! What we know about her is that she works for the enemy, she kidnapped you, she tried to kill us all, and she wants to stop our mission to destroy the full moon Shadows. What about that says 'trustworthy' to you? What about any of that is okay?"

Junpei shoved past him violently, making him stumble, and yanked open the door. Akihiko recovered quickly and pursued him, yanking him back by his shoulder before Junpei could start down the stairs. The door shut behind them with an echo that barked through the empty stairwell. "Let go of me," Junpei gritted, struggling to throw him off, but Akihiko planted his feet and held fast to his shirt. "Look, I don't expect you to understand, but I _know_ her, okay? And I'm telling you, she wouldn't have hurt me."

"Listen to me." Akihiko didn't let go, but he did loosen his grip, bracing Junpei's shoulder instead of trapping it. With effort he lowered his own voice, trying to get through to him. "Regardless of what you _think_ you know about her, you could at least have the decency to stay away for a while so we have a chance to figure this out. Your obsession with her is only making things harder. She's dangerous."

"She's not dangerous. She's…" Junpei struggled for words, then broke off angrily. "Look, we're done talking about her. You're obviously all set to see the worst, so why should I bother convincing you?"

Akihiko shook him roughly. "This isn't _about_ what I think, it's about _you_ putting everybody at risk and not seeming to give a shit!"

"Let go of me."

"You can't let everything the team's fought so hard for fly out the window just because you've finally met some girl who'll give you the time of day—"

Junpei whirled. Akihiko had just enough time to register the fact that _Junpei was swinging at him_ when the wild blow caught him on the side of the head. Completely unprepared for an attack, Akihiko stumbled with it and lost his footing. His shoulder barked off the metal bar of the door, sending a clang ricocheting through the stairwell, and then his temple found something unyielding and everything went grey and indistinct for a second, like a radio caught between stations.

When he blinked the haze away his ass was on the floor and Junpei had frozen over him, fist still outstretched, face a mask of horror.

Irritated with himself, Akihiko used the leverage of the door against his back to drag his way back into a sitting position. The action seemed to jar Junpei loose. Junpei stumbled back a step, nearly falling down the stairs when his heel slipped off the top edge. "I," Junpei stammered, and then he was turning and bolting down the stairs.

Akihiko listened to his footsteps fade, to the sound of the door on the landing below being thrown open, and thunked the back of his head against the metal door.

 _Way to duck, dipshit._

* * *

 _Thanks again for the wonderful support. Every review is like a tarukaja._


End file.
